


the darkest night

by witchless



Series: with even the darkest night comes a new dawn [2]
Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, M/M, but i recommend it, fyi you should probably read the part before this, it also does a follow-up on the effects of a shorter fire nation war on the airbender population, it's all very good, it's mostly an all original cast following a male earth avatar, it's not one hundred percent necessary, jinhai is a bisexual disaster, not beta read we die like men, takes place twenty years after the air nomad genocide, there's an original villain based off of Japanese lore and legend
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-04-18
Updated: 2021-01-25
Packaged: 2021-03-02 04:07:51
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 10
Words: 67,963
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23708893
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/witchless/pseuds/witchless
Summary: Following the fall of Fire Lord Azulon and the death of Avatar Kei, the world believes that the Avatar Cycle is permanently broken. An Avatar cannot be found within the Earth Kingdom and so the world moves on. Twenty years later, Jinhai, an orphan from a mining town, accidentally enters the Avatar State and discovers his identity as the new Avatar. And with dark spirits rising in the poles and great forests, it's a race to discover what has thrown the world into imbalance and navigate Jinhai's much-needed training.
Series: with even the darkest night comes a new dawn [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1707466
Comments: 10
Kudos: 15





	1. prologue

**PROLOGUE  
**

**I.**

News of the Fire Lord's death spreads through the world and the people rejoice. Soldiers return home to mothers and wives they haven't seen in years. The three rings of Ba Sing Se light with candles and fireworks and they paint their faces and bodies white like the Avatar.

Finally, they are free.

But their freedom has come with a price.

**II.**

"We need an answer, Ty Jiro! Did she or did she not die while in the Avatar State?" the Earth King shouts from his position at the head of the table.

"I don't know. I was so focused on getting to her that… everything else seemed irrelevant. I think her eyes were fading. I think she left it when she saw me."

"You think? _You think!_ The world needs its Avatar more than ever right now! The airbenders are homeless and starving while the Fire Nation falls into anarchy. Loyalists continue to attempt to assassinate the internment Fire Lord—" This time, it's the chief of the Northern Water Tribe who berates Jiro. "—and there's been a massive spike in crime as the released prisoners of war try and make their way home. We need the Avatar."

The Earth King frowns and lets out a heavy sigh. "The sages have attempted locating Kei's reincarnation through the traditional method of geomancy and have thus far been completely unsuccessful. We've sent missions out to test children born around the time of Avatar Kei's death but there hasn't been anything promising. There's too many orphaned children scattered around the countryside to individually test them all just to make sure. The Avatar simply cannot be found and with the uncertain circumstances surrounding Kei's death as well as the lack of results geomancy has provided, we need to prepare for a world where the Avatar no longer exists."

**III.**

In Xianghao, a little boy meets a little girl in an orphanage that is too full.

They are both earthbenders, which should make their time at Mama Lu's short because bending children are always adopted faster than Lu can draw up the paperwork, but the little girl is prone to fits of sickness. The couples who arrive whisper that she's possessed by a vengeful spirit that twists and pulls her body into unnatural shapes, leaves her eyes rolling into her skull and her mouth frothing. No one wants to adopt her, even after she smiles at them with sunshine in her eyes, and everyone wants to adopt the little boy. It's only after he spits and howls and bites and slings pebbles between their eyes that they conclude perhaps _he_ is the one possessed.

The boy refuses to leave the girl. He ruins more chances with more couples than he can count.

They spend fourteen years together in Mama Lu's Orphanage for Lost Children.

**IV.**

Their life on the street begins a little like this:

Mama Lu smiles when she sees the boy kiss one of her girls on the cheek, a blush searing the tips of his ears.

She screams when she catches him behind the orphanage pressed against another boy, their lips crushed together.

Mama Lu kicks the boy out and leaves him to be devoured by the streets.

She won't have him infecting the other children with his vile sickness.

The little girl—now not so little—leaves with him.

She's thin and frail but she's determined. When the boy tells her to return to the orphanage, she shakes her head and stomps her foot. The ground rumbles a little.

"You didn't leave me. I'm not leaving you."

**V.**

The world stops looking for the Avatar when sixteen years of unsuccessful searching passes.

It's concluded that Avatar Kei died while in the Avatar State during her fight against the Fire Lord. Her soul was never reborn and the cycle was broken.

They slowly accept the notion that the Avatar is an idea of the past and choose to celebrate the greatest victories instead of mourning the loss. Kei freed them from the radical Fire Nation imperialists and Yangchen saved them from General Old Iron. Kyoshi killed Chin the Conqueror and even Aang, the most forgotten Avatar, sacrificed his life so that his successor might save the Air Nomads.

The world owes the Avatar a great debt and so they celebrate.

Statues erect across the world. There are some of the old Avatars but most of them are of Avatar Kei. They call her the Great Liberator. The Painted Warrior. Children go to sleep with an epic saga called _The Legend of Kei and the Blue Dragon_ ringing in their ears.

There are holidays and cakes, of course, and bending forms adopted from what little remains of the Foggy Swamp named in Kei's honor. (There's even rumors that a few waterbenders who trained under her before the invasion have taken up residence in the swamp so that they can rebuild what Azulon destroyed.) Gaoling even builds a museum that holds her bow and quiver, her ruined battle armor, and a mural that tells the story of her rise and fall.

Her name echoes through the world as the people grow content and lazy. They do not care for the dark spirits who rise in the poles and in the great forests or the missing children. They don't listen to the name that the winds moan in fear; the name that the waters beat upon the rocks; the name that the fearful child cries as they wake from a terrible, bloody nightmare.

The people busy themselves with celebration. They sing the Avatar's name and drown out that howled warning.

**VI.**

In an abandoned factory, curled into a stolen blanket, a boy dreams of lightning and blood and chipped white paint and he wakes screaming.

Somewhere else, somewhere dark and dead, a death queen waits; licks the blood from her lips and teeth; smiles sweetly and sends her spirits to bring her another soul to devour. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> a very short prologue that i wanted to post before heading into part two for the purpose of context as we take a look at a world post fire nation regime.
> 
> ———
> 
> NEXT — 1 | the orphan


	2. 1 | the orphan

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> first chapter of a new avatar.

**CHAPTER ONE**  
_**the orphan** _

**I.**

Fog hangs over the valley and the sun makes a slow crawl over the horizon, chasing away the early morning chill. A boy marches up the worn dirt path which winds up a hill toward the city that sits at its crest. Large, stone walls surround this city, cracked and crumbling, brittle and broken. Only two sentries guard the entry. When the boy arrives at the threshold, the guards only grunt and pull the once-great obsidian doors open.

The city yawns open, groaning and moaning as rock moves against rock, and Jinhai slips inside before its jaws snap shut.

A crowd is already gathering at the notice board posted by the gates. They pay no attention to Jinhai as he walks by, though there are familiar, friendly faces among the mass of writhing bodies; their focus is solely honed in on the day's limited supply of work. 

He passes the early-morning farmer's market on his way home, a medley of sights and smells and sounds that make him glad to be home. There's stands for fruit, general goods, dried meats, and baked goods. He purchases a dozen sweet rolls from the single mother who sells them and half of a pound of jerky from the cranky Water Tribe man who grumbles under his breath as he counts the coins Jinhai hands over. (He does this every time Jinhai buys something. He sounds his coins not once, not twice, but three times. It's prejudice, Jinhai decides, at its finest.)

Xianghao is slowly coming to life again. Children in uniforms squeal as they dart down streets towards the center of the city where the school is located. Shop doors swing open as deadbolts are undone and chairs are taken off tables and placed back on their legs. Smoke begins to billow even heavier from chimneys as extra logs and coals are added to fireplaces to warm breakfast over. 

Jinhai hops up the stairs to his apartment two at a time, humming a lively tune. His bag bounces between his shoulder blades, the paper bag of sweets inside crinkling with every movement. He's exhausted but still so very happy to be _home_. Instead of digging out his key, which is tucked safely in his pocket, he knocks on the door and rolls onto the back of his heels.

Somewhere in the apartment, he can hear movement and the sound of a voice cursing as its owner runs into a table. Jinhai grins.

When the door opens, his roommate greets him warmly.

"Why didn't you just use your key, you asshole? You know I don't wake up for at least another few hours," says Hotaru, rubbing her eyes with the back of her hand.

He shoulders past Hotaru gently, still humming. "Can't find it," he says and throws himself on the living room couch, his head leaning against the wall. _Lie_. He'd really just wanted to see her all sleepy-eyed and disgruntled. It's his favorite look on her. "I've been gone for at least a week."

"You've been gone for three days—and if you can't be responsible enough to keep track of your key, then you should have been respectful enough to let me get my beauty sleep." Hotaru's nose lifts in mock indignation and she crosses her arms over her chest. 

Jinhai snorts a laugh and rolls his eyes. Then he digs the bag of treats from his rucksack. "Even if I bought sweet rolls?"

Hotaru's eyes immediately widen and she smiles, wide and true. She lunges for the bag, tumbling into his lap, her tongue poking out of the corner of her lips as her fingers strain. Jinhai holds it just out of reach. He makes a disapproving noise low in his throat but he's desperately trying to contain his laughter as Hotaru straddles him and climbs him like he's a tree.

"Ah, not yet, little girl. You said you could've waited a few more hours. I think I should just eat them all by myself."

"Jinhai," she growls, pushing his head down as her fingers brush the corner of the bag. "You're a grown man. _Stop being such a big baby._ "

Finally, Jinhai breaks down in a fit of laughter that aches in his stomach and brings tears to his eyes. Hotaru snatches the bag from him and unrolls the top before greedily snatching out two rolls. 

After she's taken a rather large bite out of the first roll, she smiles at him sickly sweet and slides off of his thighs to sit next to him. "Have I ever told you how much I love you, best friend?"

"Maybe once or twice," he says, smiling. His heartbeat feels like its caught in his throat. "How was your week? Anything exciting?" asks Jinhai

Hotaru picks at the roll in her hand before tearing a piece off and offering it to Jinhai. Their knees and shoulders bump together as they listen to the city begin another day. "Umm. I saw an airbender in the market on Tuesday. He was pretty old but it's been a few years since I've seen one. And Yao came looking for you. He said to tell you he's got a fight lined up for you when you got back in town."

"That's good. The mines didn't pay me very much this time. Not that they ever do. I'll head down and talk to him later today. We could use the extra money."

There's a beat of comfortable silence, filled only with the sound of Hotaru reaching into the bag for another treat.

Then: "Did you get sick at all while I was gone?"

Hotaru swallows and her eyes dart to the side. She begins to circle the pad of her thumb with the attached pointer finger. It's a tick of hers, a sign Jinhai knowns means she's about to lie to him.

"No. Not since that one last week."

"Hotaru..." he warns

"Okay. Fine. _Twice._ But it wasn't even that bad! I only have like a small bruise on my elbow and I didn't even bite my tongue."

Jinhai groans. "I knew I shouldn't have left you alone. What if you'd hit your head or hurt yourself? What if it happened when you were in public? You know that people freak out whenever you have a fit."

"Well I didn't and I'm fine. People can think that I'm possessed all they want. My craziness is entirely my own." Hotaru grins in an attempt to cheer her friend up but Jinhai's focus is on the ground and he's frowning deeply. "I'm not a little girl. I'm nineteen years old and you can't stay with me twenty-four-seven. You have a life, too. I'm not going to burden you with the possibility that I _might_ get sick when you go somewhere. Most of the time, I don't. So calm down and finish eating these sweet rolls with me before I do it myself and gain twenty pounds."

Jinhai looks up. His brow is still wrinkled with worry but a single, soft smile from Hotaru smoothes it away. He can't stay mad or frustrated for long when she looks at him like _that—_ all big green eyes with pouty lips and a crumb stuck to the corner of her mouth. His heart hammers in his chest and a truth he's never admitted—a truth he's barely acknowledged to exist within himself—rises to the surface.

_She just needs you like this. She needs you as her friend. Don't betray her trust like that._

He swallows and wipes the piece of frosting away. He smiles when an embarrassed blush stains her cheeks and wraps an arm around her shoulders to pull her into his side. She hooks her knee over his thigh, a familiar gesture that still sends his pulse into overdrive, and leans her head on his shoulder. With his free hand, he ruffles her short hair—she cut it to her shoulders recently and he remembers stammering on his words when she first showed him—and chuckles when she swats at his hand.

They sit like that for a while until the city is roaring with life and not even a crumb remains of the sweet rolls from the market.

**II.**

When Mama Lu caught Jinhai with another male, he and Hotaru had to learn how to survive entirely on their own.

After the initial denial lifted, Jinhai knew they’d never be able to return to the orphanage. Mama Lu refused to allow his illness—the mental _wrongness_ that caused someone to find more than just the opposite sex attractive—to infect the other children. She wouldn’t let him come home even when he cried, even when he begged, even when he told her that she was the only mother he’d ever had. And Hotaru refused to listen to him. She refused to leave his side and listen to reason.

So Mama Lu locked the orphanage’s doors on the both of them. 

“Do not let them in,” she said. And because the other children knew what her rage could be like, the door remained shut.

(After that, Jinhai was more secretive with his lovers. It didn’t matter that there was no one left in his life who could—or would—brandish that intimate piece of knowledge against him. Mama Lu’s lesson had been taught: Who you are is unacceptable.)

They were both earthbenders but Hotaru's illness—on top of creating the fits that shocked her body—made it difficult for her to bend earth with much control. She was a natural disaster, all earthquakes and rock falls, and there wasn't a single teacher in a hundred miles who would not only teach her but accept the complications her illness created.

Hotaru couldn't work the mines and Jinhai refused to leave her alone for the amount of time it would take for him to complete a shift. 

They looked for other ways to survive.

Hotaru found work mending, washing, and embroidering clothes for the wealthy families in Xianghao. She had a talent for sewing that made her work valuable and enviable among that small pool of the rich. The constant demand for a prettier, grander dress allowed her to avoid exposing her sickness; and if she had a fit while working, the worst that could happen was a stuck finger or a bucket of spilled water.

Jinhai, however, had to find other means of survival. (He couldn't sew worth shit. He'd tried to learn—and failed. Miserably.)

He met Yao a few months after leaving Mama Lu's when one of his goons tried to rob him. It resulted in a bending fight that left the other man with a few cracked ribs and a nasty knock to the head.

"You've obviously never been formally trained but you have potential," said Yao, fingers laced with gold rings tapping against each other. "You're strong, fast, and a quick-thinker. What would you say about fighting in my ring if I agreed to train you and paid you handsomely?"

Jinhai scowled and spat at Yao's feet while the crime boss laughed.

"I am _not_ a criminal," he hissed. His temper and his pride had always been the two worst parts of his personality. He'd snatched his stolen bag of coins from Yao's hand, turned heel, and stomped out of the noodle shop that they laundered money through.

"You'll be back!" Yao said after him, still chuckling to himself.

Jinhai remembers how fiercely he swore under his breath. He might've been an orphan but he wasn't a thief and he wasn't a criminal. He had so few pieces left of himself to cling to. He didn't want to give up his dignity, his morals, or whatever the fuck it was he'd be giving up, just for a little bit of extra cash.

But when Hotaru got sick with a burning fever a week later—she was always sick but until then Mama Lu had always footed the bill—and the doctor slammed the door in Jinhai's face when he offered up two copper pieces, he marched right back into Yao's office. He wasn't willing to give up that piece of himself for money alone but he'd give every last bit of himself he had if it meant keeping Hotary safe and healthy and happy.

"When can we start?" he asked.

Yao smiled. It was an I-told-you-so smile but thankfully the words remained unspoken. "Tomorrow," he said and offered Jinhai a heavy bag of yuans. "Here. An advance. For your friend to see a doctor. Be here at dawn." 

And that was that. 

(Sometimes, Jinhai thinks that Yao might have gotten Hotaru sick. He's not sure how or when or if he's even right, but the thought sits in his gut like soured milk. Especially when he discovers that Yao's signature usually involves threatening the life of a loved one.)

Five years later, Jinhai still finds himself in Yao's employment. Yao's specialty is in illegal gambling and drug dealing—specifically, opium. Jinhai's work now consists of rounding up payments from addicts who think they can get a free hit or accompanying Yao's men when they smuggle a shipment inside Xiaghao's walls. He avoided that kind of work for a good many years but now he takes a harder job every once in a while when they run low on money and Hotaru needs more medicine.

Now, he'll do just about anything short of murder if Yao asked him to. But in the beginning, Jinhai strictly worked the ring.

After a week or two of lessons from Yao's top earthbenders—excluding the one whose ribs he'd broken—he was thrown into the fighting ring.

His first opponent was a tall, brawny man with a large scar clouding his right eye.

Jinhai won by the skin of his teeth and received a black eye and broken toe as a souvenir.

Since then, there were so many fights that Jinhai couldn't remember them all even if he tried. Sometimes Hotaru came to watch him and she sat with Yao in a private box above the ring. Yao had seen Hotaru in one of her fits and didn't subscribe to the theory that a spirit liked to possess her on occasion; he only put a pillow under her head and said she'd better not bleed on his antique Fire Nation rug.

There were times when Yao asked him to throw a match and, after swallowing his pride, Jinhai did as he was told.

Tonight is one of those nights.

For this match, his opponent is a skinny Water Tribe boy with a hooked nose and a head as shiny as an airbender's. If Jinhai has to guess, the boy once wore a wolf's tail but it's been shaved off, likely for some disgrace he'd committed against his tribe. Rape or murder probably, if the hard glint in his blue eyes is anything to go off of.

Jinhai grinds his teeth.

The Water Tribe boy is a bender so Yao has two large barrels of water set out for his use. His fingers twitch and the water sloshes over the edge. Jinhai familiarizes himself with the dirt beneath his bare feet, digs his heels in and reaches down to cover his hands in a layer of dust.

They wait, the air crackling with tension as Yao's men finish collecting the bets from the crowd. His record against the newcomer's puts the odds at twenty-to-one. In the last few months, Jinhai hasn't lost a single match against the ragtag benders Yao corrals in. It's made the gamblers loose with their money as they place it on what they think should be an easy win.

It's exactly why Yao has asked him to throw the match.

When the bell rings, there is no explosion of action. There's only the sound of water sloshing in barrels and the crowd leering at the two stone-still boys in the ring.

They're both… _waiting_. Jinhai listens to the earth, waits and atunes himself to the waterbender's tells. The boy's pulse hitches.

Water surges from their containers, freezing as it slices toward him.

Jinhai leaps back, earth propelling his jump. Ice embeds itself into the ground where he once stood and when the earthbender makes contact with the ground against, he bring his arms to his chest and buries the water deep underneath the earth.

Then he rushes forward, sliding as he rotates his hips, and launches a large rock toward his opponent. A sharp thrust from his fist sends a twin boulder careening from the opposite direction. The boy ducks and water moves him forward like he's riding an ocean's wave.

For a long ten minutes, it's water and earth colliding in a brutal war, skin slicing cleanly open and deep purple bruises blooming as a rock collides with tender flesh. Blood drips in Jinhai's eyes and the sound of his own teeth smacking together rings in his ears. It's violence and rage and unbridled power at its best and this is where Jinhai thrives.

Jinhai provides the show he knows Yao wants and keeps the waterbender's pride intact. When he thinks there's been enough damage inflicted on both ends to douse any suspicions of an unfair match, he allows the waterbender to throw him on his back and knock him unconscious.

When he awakes, he's propped up against a wall in the room provided to fighters before the match. Hotaru kneels in front of him, waving smelling salts in front of his nose.

He groans and rubs the welt forming in his hairline. For a moment, there are two Hotarus before they mold into one and he can clearly see the frown pulling at her face.

"You took quite the hit," Hotaru says.

"Yao wanted me to lose. Didn't know he was going to rock my shit like _that_."

Hotaru swipes away a dot of blood on his eyebrow with the pad of her thumb. Concern flickers in her eyes. "You let him hit you more than usual."

"Yao wanted me to lose,” he repeats. “I couldn't just roll over without making it look like I tried. You know how it goes."

She slaps her thighs and rolls back onto the balls of her feet. An irritated noise escapes her throat. "I was _worried_."

Outside the room, Jinhai hears the ring’s bell sound again. The crowd roars with delight.

Jinhai cocks a grin that immediately turns into a grimace when his bruising jaw protests. "Happy to know you care."

Hotaru sighs and stands. She offers him her hand. Jinahi takes it and wraps his arm around her shoulder, partially because he needs the support, partially because he can smell the tea tree in her hair.

"You're impossible,” she grumbles. “Let's get you home. If only you were a waterbender and you could heal yourself. Now I've got to be the one to play nurse."

"I love you, too."

**III.**

In theory, the money Yao pays him for throwing the match should be enough to cover most of the month's expenses. Rent, groceries, and Hotaru's medicine from the herbalist don't even eat up half of the winnings. There's more than enough to splurge on a new piece of furniture for their apartment and finally replace Jinhai's holy breeches.

Theory, however, does not include Hotaru falling prey to a fit when she delivers a noblewoman's wedding dress.

Whatever sickness consumes her dug its teeth in deeper than it had in a long time. She'd bitten her tongue and there's a small cut on her forehead where she hit her head on the corner of a table. If the noblewoman is to be believed, the ground shook like an earthquake was toppling the city but strangely only affected her fiancé’s property.

(Jinhai doesn't doubt the woman on this. During her fits, Hotaru's bending was sometimes released in powerful shock waves that shook the world.)

The noblewoman threatens to tell her fiancé and cry _demon!—_ unless Jinhai pays her dowry of sixty gold Yuans.

Jinhai buys the woman's silence because there is _nothing_ he wouldn't do for Hotaru. He pays the woman even if that means that there is no money for food or rent. Those things can be dealt with. Hotaru hanging from the city gates by a rope or being drawn and quartered cannot be dealt with so easily. 

(The mere thought makes his gut roil.)

Hotaru grips his hand as tight as she can while he wars within himself. This fit, this wave of sickness, has taken a lot out of her. She's still weak, a little delirious, and the clay figurines he makes for Hotaru on her birthdays shake with built-up energy. He doesn't want to leave her. But they need money— _now_ , if the landlord pounding on their door and their growling stomachs is any indication.

Yao asks him to accompany his crew to smuggle a batch of opium within Xianghao's walls. He's low on men because most of them refuse to enter the woods around the city at night now. Too many missing kids, too many abandoned campsites with belongings left perfectly in place. They've made superstitions run high.

Hotaru doesn't want him to go. Not because she doesn't want to be left alone but because she's worried for his safety. Out of their pairing, she was the one who always prayed to the spirits and believed in the local legends about the _yokai_ who'd crossed into the physical world when the Avatar's era ended.

Jinhai kisses her on the forehead but makes no promises to deny Yao’s request.

**IV.**

A black cowl hides Jinhai's mop of black curls from sight and swathes his face in shadows as he marches through a great forest. A thin sliver of the moon carves a spidery path through the trees as they work toward a hole in Xianghao's security— _the perfect spot smuggle a shipment of opium inside_.

In the center of their group of men, earth quietly rolls along, guided by their bending. Packages of opium are piled upon the slab, covered with a black tarp that keeps it hidden and secured in place.

One of the men is whistling an awful, off-key tune that makes Jinhai want to commit his first homicide. It sludges through the humid air and sticks to his skin, piled on top of a sticky layer of sweat. It's winter time, nearing the solstice, but that only means more rain and fog for this part of the Earth Kingdom.

(In this moment, Jinahi wishes he was an airbender so he could bend a breeze into the air—and possibly silence the tone-deaf man Yao condemned him to spend an evening working with. He then follows this moment with a second one to remind himself why he's even here and tries to replace the whistling with the memory of Hotaru's laugh.)

The shipment Yao sent them to pick up is large enough to leave the entire city of Ba Sing Se high for days. There are only a few jobs Jinahi can remember being this large and in the past it meant Yao had plans to corrupt a city official or crush a rival gang.

Jinhai doesn't like to ask questions about Yao's goals. He collects his paycheck and keeps his head down. When a rumor about the governor's daughter and her sudden drug addiction spreads through the city, Jinhai keeps his mouth shut. _Better them than us,_ he thinks; but it always sours his thoughts and makes his stomach roll.

As much as he likes to pretend he doesn't have one, his heart always stands in the way of his work. In another life, he imagines he'd be a policeman or a bounty hunter and if he had money he'd fund orphanages across the Earth Kingdom and drag the poor out of a life of poverty. He wouldn't work as muscle for a ruthless crime boss or swindle addicts out of their money. He'd be the type of person who took people like _he is now_ down. He'd stop men like Yao from drugging girls and using them against their fathers.

Jinhai blows out a harsh breath and drags the earth beneath the shipment forward. He's too tired and too worried about Hotaru's health to be considering things this heavy in nature. There's no point in dwelling on things that can't be changed anyway. There is no second chance at life; he’s simply got to deal with the hand he’s been given.

"What do you think Yao is planning to do this time?" one of the men asks. He's tall and slender and his too-large-teeth make him look like a baby rabaroo.

"I dunno for sure, but I bet you its got something to do with the Sandstorms making a go at some of Yao's territory in the eastern part of the city," a different voice replies. This one belongs to a boy who looks even younger than Jinhai and has none of the scars to prove his worth on the streets.

The man with the rabaroo face snorts. "They have no idea who they've fucked with."

"Agreed."

They march like that for a while, each member of the team speculating what the opium is for and who has angered their leader. The woods are eerily quiet except for the echoing sound of their own voices. Not even the cat owls are out and Jinhai can't shake the feeling that they're being watched—or stalked like prey.

He reaches out with the earth and looks for a heartbeat or a tremor that might tell him where the feeling is coming from. But there's nothing. No predators or even small prey.

Jinhai pauses and raises a closed fist. The group stops behind him, grumbles at the interruption. "Something's wrong," he says finally, brow furrowed. He scans the trees around him, but its too dark to make much sense of the shapes that reveal themselves.

"What are you talking about? There's no one out here. The watch never comes this way."

The young earthbender shakes his head. "There's _nothing_ out here. I can't feel anything."

"And that's a bad thing why?"

"The native wildlife are gone. They ran from something."

"Sure you're not just missing it? This may come as a shock to you, kid, but you aren't half as good a bender as you think you are."

Jinhai waits another moment, listens to the dark. The stifling humidity licks his skin but there's something mixed with it, deep and dark and ancient.

He opens his mouth, begins to unfurl his fingers to signal them forward again—

A monster bursts from the trees surrounding them; it's a large creature that stands several heads taller than the biggest man in their group and it's a deep shade of jade with sharp bone-like spikes flowing off its back. Black teeth glint in the night and Jinhai doesn't even have time to bring the earth under his control before one of the men is down, howling as the beast tears into his shoulder.

Jinhai's fists curl and with a strong jerk from his arms he pulls a column of stone into the air. He pushes it forward with a flat palm. It strikes air and shatters with a deafening _boom!_ when it hits the base of a tree. Where the beast had once been there is only the mangled body of the attacked man.

The remaining men are terrified. One runs into the woods screaming. His voice stops a few seconds later, turns watery and high-pitched before cutting to silence.

Jinhai can taste the fear rolling from the men's bodies. His own heart pounds against his chest as he listens for the creature—but it's nowhere to be seen or heard even though he can feel its energy slick like oil all around him.

"What _was_ that?"

The energy in the air thickens and the hair on Jinhai's neck stands on end. His body buzzes and a voice in the back of his mind, soft and familiar and feminine, whispers, _Duck. Now._

He dives to the ground without time to question what the voice had been just in time to see the jade monster launch above him. A boulder slams into the creature when it dives for another man. It yelps, skids across the forest floor before righting itself, claws tearing into the dirt and grass. Then it unleashes a howl that has Jinhai curling into the ground, his hands pressed over his ears as terror, sharp and coppery, lances through him.

Another howl answers the call and Jinhai knows more are coming.

Jinhai scrambles to his feet, turns the fear in his belly to steel, and sinks into a traditional earthbending stance. He can't see a thing but there's that voice in his mind whispering to him. Wherever he feels the creature, wherever that voice tells him to throw a rock, he does. He knows he's hit several of them with enough force to kill an _unagi_ but it feels like there’s constantly more of them. One dies, and three more take its place. It's killed at least two of the men and Jinhai can't stop the fear from returning.

He could be next. And Hotaru would never know what happened to him if he died out here. She'd think he left her just like their parents had left them.

_He’d never tell her that he—_

There's the sound of bone breaking and flesh tearing and it's so terrible and grotesque that bile rises in his throat. Opium, torn out of their containers, floats like black snow in the air, barely visible in the darkness of the woods. When he whips around, desperately trying to tear himself out of his haze of fear and find _something_ corporeal to fight, he meets the gaze of one of the beasts. Two glowing yellow eyes gleam back at him and the beast's lip curls back, its incisors dripping.

 _I don't know how to fight like this,_ he thinks. _I don't know how to fight **things**_ _like this._

When the creature brings a massive paw forward, takes one step towards Jinhai, he trips on a body and lands on his back with a _thud_. He crawls back on his hands, desperately stumbling and shoving in an attempt to get away from the beast that looks at him like _it knows him._ He wipes a hand over his mouth, smearing blood across his chin from where friendly-fire hit him, and squeezes his eyes when the beast leaps.

His hands raise. The earth trembles. A voice, the same soft voice— _our blood is water, our bones are earth—_ echoes in his ears and fills him until he's bursting with energy.

In the darkest part of the woods on the darkest night of the year, light bursts from a boy like dawn spilling over the horizon.

**V.**

When Jinhai still lived at Mama Lu's, he was an easy target for the other children's unbridled anger. They broke the few belongings he owned, pushed and shoved him, cornered and beat him, stole his meals.

It was more than just exclusion and it started as far back as Jinhai could remember. Their treatment was cruel and painful. He didn't understand why until he was five years old when one of the children so graciously and callously said—

" _No wonder your mom didn't want you. You probably look just like your daddy and the sight of you made her sick."_

And suddenly, when Jinhai looked in the mirror, it all made sense.

Only half of his features were Earth Kingdom. His skin was a deep shade of tan that was common among the Si Wong desert tribes and if he had to guess, that was also where his curly, black hair came from, too. They weren't common traits this far north in the Earth Kingdom but they were still a part of the nation's diverse culture.

No, it wasn't his hair or his skin that caused the other children—and some of the caretakers, too—to turn on him.

It was his _eyes_.

They weren't green or gold, rather a peculiar shade of hazel that was indecisive on most days and were his most distinguishable feature. Their sharp, angular tilt and monolid was only found in the nation that'd caused a lot of people a lot of grief. They told him everything he needed to know.

He was as much a Fire Nation citizen as he was a member of the Earth Kingdom and he fully belonged to neither.

 _Half-breed_. That's what the other children called him.

And the nurses had their own stories, too.

"He was left here when the colonies were rioting," one of the women whispered when she thought she was alone with a friend. "I bet you one of the soldiers had his way with his mother and she left him here because she was so ashamed. I couldn't imagine looking at the face of the very thing that ruined my life, either."

When he was a boy, maybe five or six, there'd been a short period of time that he was sure he was a firebender. It wasn't long after he heard the caretakers whispering about him. He'd gone for a swim in one of the large rivers outside Xianghao and it was the middle of their coldest winter. That year, it rained ice, an occurrence that hadn't happened since Avatar Roku's time. The children at the orphanage were exceptionally cruel that day and suggested he drown himself to purge the fire from his blood. Jinhai had no intention of drowning himself but he did draw the conclusion that he might be able to freeze whatever demon lurked in his veins.

Long story told short, he'd underestimated the current underneath the ice and it pulled him under. He was dragged below the surface and he screamed and pounded on the ice above him. His lungs ached and his eyes burned—and when he was sure he had seconds left to live, his hands snagged on a lip in the ice and it glowed a blinding bright red before his hands broke to the top. He pulled himself out of the water, shivering, terrified. Only a few months later he discovered he was an earthbender and he'd dismissed the whole thing as a miraculous weak spot in the ice and a trick of the light. You couldn't be a firebender _and_ an earthbender. _Not unless—_

Jinahi learned to ignore the words. He learned to ignore the river. He learned to run far, far away and he learned to build walls of earth so high and strong nothing could get over them.

Until now.

There was no running away from the Avatar State.

Because that's what it had been—that burst of light and ancient power that chased awake the demons made of nightmares.

There is no running away from the men who look at him with wonder and fear and the realization _that the Avatar is not dead._ Has never _been_ dead. The Avatar is a boy who fought in Yao's ring and he is a boy who'd moved thousands of pounds of opium and he is a boy who is so terrified of his own nature that he'd shoved it deep down in the belly of his soul.

There is no possible way he can run now. But that doesn't stop him from trying.

**VI.**

Jinhai's body has never hurt like this before.

Not when Mama Lu whipped his back raw. Not when he fought in Yao's ring three days in a row. Not when he lived on the streets and the winter's cold seeped and slipped into his bones.

His body rattles like a bag full of silver coins and he feels the power stored in them. It sizzles over every nerve and demands to be seen, heard, and felt. The world bows to that power and so the ground still shakes and the winds still howl. When he enters Xianghao again, the buildings reach for him like trees bending in the wind.

He digs the heels of his palms into his eyes, tries to fight away the pain that splits through his skull, lets out a soft moan when the pressure only continues to grow. Jinhai is covered in blood and ichor and he can feel the light still searing against the back of his eyes, begging to be released.

He's never hurt like this before.

The mantra—he doesn't know where it comes from, but it resonates through him like a tsungi horn—swallows his mind, eclipses all other thoughts.

_I am unyielding and unbreakable like the First Tree. My blood is water, my breath is air, my bones are earth, and my soul is fire. I am the Avatar and in this I cannot fail._

Jinhai runs. He runs until he's stumbling, falling into walls, pushing into the few people out this late at night.

He can't outrun the visions. He can't fight them off. Light swallows his world and a new one emerges from the rays.

There's a little girl with pointy features and spindly arms and legs. She sits before three elders whose faces are covered with giant leaves and there's a snake wrapped around her— _their—_ body.

" _A great spirit called Raava lives in you, Kei. The First Tree showed us who you are and told us what we had to do keep you safe until you were old enough to leave._ You _are the Avatar."_

Jinhai gasps and reaches for the closest thing to him: a fruit stand, emptied for the night. The wood feels cool and firm beneath him but he's quickly ripped away to another world, another time.

A prison. He's in chains. There's a man wearing a Fire Nation uniform in front of him and his heart pounds in his chest. Not with fear, something else. _Love_.

" _You're the Avatar,"_ the man says and disappears in a cloud of black smoke as Jinhai is pulled away.

A thousand memories from a hundred lives flash behind his eyes. He's a woman and he's a man and he's covered in arrows before he's just a body with skin pale like snow. There's a thousand people, a thousand mentors, all whispering and shouting and pouring over him like the desert sun.

_You are the Avatar you are the Avatar youaretheAvataryou—_

Another voice, stronger, louder, deeper and more feminine, eclipses them. Something in him reaches for it, for the familiarity and the warmth and the feeling that he's _finally_ found the other half of his soul.

 _He cannot destroy light anymore than I can destroy darkness.  
_ _We will be together for all of your lifetimes. And we will never give up._

Jinhai's mind is pulled back to the physical world with a sharp tug. His body slams into the fruit stand and he feels the sweat building on his brow and upper lip as he swallows large gulps of air.

The glow hovers just beyond his reach.

He needs to get home. He's losing control again.

_In this we cannot fail._

His ascent up the stairs that lead to their apartment is loud and jerky and he falls more than once. A few tenants emerge from their rooms to yell at him but quickly retreat back inside with a gasp when they see the shine in his eyes. _Avatar_ , they whisper. _It's not possible. Impossible. Gone. Dead._

_No, he danced on your bones—_

Jinhai chokes on a cry of terror as a phantom pain arrows through his heart. He clutches his chest, falls short of his own front door.

He stumbles forward and pounds on the wood gasping and gulping and straining against his own skin. _Please please please._

The door swings open and he falls into Hotaru's arms, clutching her shoulders like she's his lifeline. He's sobbing, terrified, a stranger in his own body.

He wants to go home.

He is home.

" _Jinhai!_ Jinhai, what's wrong?"

He feels her touch on his cheeks, his back, his arms. It's cool and forgiving like water, calling to him like a summer song. Hotaru's fingers thread into the curls at the nape of Jinhai's neck and she twists and toys with them like she knows he likes. When they were younger, they'd curl into each other when one of them was sick and she always did this to comfort him. It has an immediate soothing effect that pushes away the voices and visions. He focuses on that, uses it to stop the light from pulling him further away. The shaking in his limbs subsides, but the fear does not.

"Tell me what's wrong," she says, soft but firm.

His fingers are still digging into her arms and his face is still buried in the crook of her neck. He can't let go. The visions have left him, but he knows something _other_ still lingers in his face. He's afraid to show her. He's afraid she'll leave.

He's afraid she'll hate what he's become, what he's always been. _You didn't ask for this. I'm so sorry._

"There were spirits in the woods," he whispers finally, voice shaking. "They attacked us."

"Is this your blood?" she asks, concern lacing her words.

He shakes his head and squeezes his eyes shut as a memory of the spirit flashes through his mind. Its yellow eyes are a permanent stain on his mind. "Only some of it. Most of it's from one of the men that I tripped over."

Hotaru's hands tighten around his shoulders and he knows she's about to push him back. She's about to see. He doesn't stop her, but he does screw his eyes shut. _She can't see she can't see she can't see me._

"Jinhai, why are your eyes closed?"

Two hands cup his cheeks. A thumb across the space under his eyes. "Jinhai, open your eyes. _Look_ at me."

A muscle in his jaw ticks. Slowly, he reveals himself.

Hotaru's face is a painting of light and shadows. The crooked floor shakes under their feet like an earthquake announcing its arrival and a storm gathers between the walls of their small apartment.

Jinhai waits. He waits for her to push him away and curse him for abandoning the world. Tell him he's awful. She always was a true believer, the kind that prayed for the Avatar to return. She'll say he's undeserving of the honor bestowed upon him, terrible for allowing his reign to be forgotten. _What kind of Avatar disappears for almost twenty years?_

Or maybe, instead of being angry, she'll be disappointed that he is the Avatar. He, who is as crooked and selfish and morally-gray as they come. Excellent material for a criminal. Not an Avatar.

With her dream standing before her, not at all the regal leader in robes of emerald, would she hate him for ruining it?

Hotaru's fingers drift over his face, tracing the lines she knows by heart, as the white light in Jinhai's eyes fades– _finally_.

Her fingers stop at his cheekbones, which sit high and sharp on his face. They, along with his eyes, attest to his Fire Nation lineage. He watches her throat work as she swallows. He can't force himself to meet her gaze; whatever is there will break him.

"Who knows?" she asks slowly, filling the deathly quiet room.

Jinhai startles. "After I ran the spirits off, I left the other men. There were a few survivors. Not many. Only one or two. And some of our neighbors saw my eyes."

She nods. Finally, Jinhai gathers the courage he needs to look at her. She's got her thinking face on, the one that twists her nose up and feathers the fine skin at the corners of her eyes. If he wasn't so consumed with his fear, he'd smile. He loves that face.

"We need to leave. Now. The men are going to tell Yao what they saw."

"What?"

Hotaru is moving, grabbing his rucksack and tossing essential belongings in it. A change of clothes. The small pouch with a few spare copper pieces. The clay figure he made for her birthday this year that was meant to look like one of the great lion turtles but resembles a hog monkey more.

"The men are going to tell Yao about you. You may have history with him but he's not going to prioritize that above the risk you now pose to his business."

Jinhai grabs a fistful of his hair and pulls. His mind, which had raced with knowledge from a hundred other people, now feels like its been stuffed with wool. Hotaru throws the rucksack over her back and comes to stand in front of him again.

She grabs his cheek, slaps it lightly.

"Jinhai, you need to snap out of it. We need to go. Yao probably knows by now."

"Hotaru—"

She clicks her tongue and grabs his wrist with a surprisingly strong grip. "You're the Avatar. Deal with it. Now let's go."

**VII.**

Hotaru is right.

Yao has men all over Xianghao looking for the prize fighter. Their threat hangs heavy over the city but Jinhai doesn't feel it, doesn't care for it.

He knows he could've easily taken them before he discovered he was the Avatar and his bending has only grown stronger in the hours since the spirits' attack. He's also past the point of feeling scared. Now, he just feels… _numb_.

They manage to avoid most of the footmen; the ones they can't, Jinhai takes care of quietly with the skills that previously made him so valuable. The familiarity of bending and combat helps chase away the fear of the unknown.

Finally, when the sun begins to rise, they reach the woods outside of Xianghao's walls. They are relatively unharmed and completely exhausted but there is no time to stop for sleep or rest for even a moment.

"Yao will spread the news," Hotaru says. "It won't take long for people to hear that the Avatar is alive. At this point, he won't care who kills you. You pose a threat to all of the crime organizations. They'll put aside their differences to work toward a common goal."

"Thank you for coming with me," he says.

"I made a promise, Jinhai. I'm not breaking it now."

They don't say anything further. 

It's hard to remember a time before Hotaru. He'd been at the orphanage since he was a baby but for him adoption had never been a prospect. No one wanted him. He was too colicy as a baby, too unruly as a toddler, and by the time Hotaru arrived he flat out refused to leave. It was the first time he felt like someone cared he existed. She was his family. 

To be honest, he's not sure what he would've done if she'd decided who he was now was too much. He's not sure where he'd go or how he'd survive—if he'd even still be alive without her to nudge him along while he's still processing the night's trauma. 

Hotaru is his family. His rock. When he looks her, walking several paces in front of him with purpose in her step, his heart swells. As long as he has her, he'll be okay.

Even now, with the morning chill on their ears and noses and their eyes raw with exhaustion, Jinhai still feels the same.

He looks at the way the sun turns pieces of Hotaru's hair red and gold, wipes away a sleepy smile with the back of his hand. He can't help it, can't help the thought.

_We'll be okay. As long as I have her. As long as she has me. We'll be okay._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i love jinhai to pieces. this book is going to have a different energy to it than book two. (i think. honestly, this story writes itself. I have no control anymore. i'm simply a vessel.) less doom and gloom because idk where the hell kei went but i'm honestly okay with it. same good ole epic storyline but more character relationships and expansion on the lore. sounds good, right? i already have a few great scenes in mind that i can't wait to share with you because i laugh when i think about them. the spirits you read about toward the end of the chapter are based on a creature in japanese lore called the taotie. i stumbled across them when i was doing research for this arc's villain and thought they were cool af. also, xianghao is a city i made up and is located somewhere between hei bai's forest and the great divide, just in case if you were wondering.
> 
> ———
> 
> NEXT — two | the avatar cycle


	3. 2 | the avatar cycle

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> some cameos from kei's arc here *insert devil emoji*

**CHAPTER TWO  
 _the avatar cycle_**

**I.**

The news strikes the Earth Kingdom like lightning.

_The Avatar is—_

_Alive._

_He is alive._

Bounty hunters and assassins find themselves gainfully employed by crime syndicates. Their orders: Kill the boy on sight. Fear and greed motivate the world now and strangers who vaguely resemble the rumored Avatar die in dark alleys, gutted and flayed.

None of them are the right target, though.

The temples do not flare with light. They do not announce the birth of a new Avatar in the ruins of the once great Fire Nation.

And so the murders continue.

The _daofei_ aren't the only ones searching, though. There are others who remember the reign of the Avatar.

They are still searching. They never stopped.

**II.**

His boots echo against the concrete floor of the warehouse, a sharp, orderly tap that keeps perfect time with the steady beat his heart. The admiral hates this base camp—it's always full of sand and bugs when he visits and he only ever comes here when the sandbenders are stirring up too much trouble for the stationed men to handle, which is a big enough problem on its own. To add to his frustrations, this so-called emergency forced him to leave the sabbatical he'd taken with his wife on Whale Tail Island.

He reassures himself he won't be here for long. Once he settles whatever conflict the sandbenders have created, he can return to his wife and enjoy the remainder of their vacation.

The general in charge of the central kingdom base sent him a messenger hawk a few days ago. Apparently, whatever the conflict is, it isn't something that can be handled alone and the details couldn't be relayed over messenger hawk.

Two _jian_ blades swing at his sides and bump against his hip when he stops before the doors to the interrogation room. They're more for decoration than anything else. His real weapons are his hands, the two sharp knuckles of his pointer and middle finger.

The admiral opens the doors, smooths out the lines in his face until he's the fearsome leader ready to inflict justice.

Inside, three of his men are waiting. There's a one-way window that separates them from the prisoner in the other room. A short look at the captive tells the admiral that he's from one of the sand tribes and he's likely a bender if the level of restraints are anything to go by.

"General Shu," the admiral greets cooly. "Private Feng and Ki. Care to explain what is so important that it requires my immediate attention?"

Private Feng swallows and steps forward. "We received a report that there was a murderer on the loose in the villages north of the desert at the beginning of last week. General Shu deployed myself and Ki to investigate. When we arrived, we discovered that there were nearly seven victims in total and the killer had a very specific modus operandi. The victims were all in their late teens or early twenties, male, and of mixed origin. Further questioning told us that they were all of both Fire Nation and Si Wong ancestry, or at least resembled it."

Feng pauses and scratches the back of his neck. The admiral resists a frown as the soldier struggles to find his words.

"When we captured him and interrogated him, we thought he was lying, sir. No one has seen or heard of the Avatar in _years—_ "

The admiral slices into the boy with a molten gaze. "What," he murmurs, quiet like a storm, "did you just say?"

General Shu steps forward, places a hand on his old friend's shoulder. "I know it's hard to believe. But we got in touch with the other bases around the continent before we contacted you and they all have similar reports. They all say the Avatar is back. There was a spirit attack outside of a city up north. Apparently the boy was apart of a team of footmen transferring opium. The attack triggered the Avatar State and the boy hasn't been seen since. He's gone underground. And for good reason, too, since this sandbender is one of many out to get him. As of right now, we have every reason to believe that Kei didn't die while in the Avatar State. You didn't—you didn't kill the Avatar, Jiro."

Admiral Ty Jiro looks at the sandbender whose snarling and spitting at the mirror ferociously. She says that there are so many more just like him hunting the Avatar, desperate to squash out a speck of light in the dark. An imagine of Kei turning to face him as the light in her eyes fades flashes through his mind. For a moment, he can see the ivy color of _her_ eyes. 

A weight he's carried for twenty years lifts from his shoulders. There was always the guilty, nagging thought that _he_ pulled her attention away from the battle, that it was _his_ fault she died, that _he_ didn't move fast enough, that there were a thousand and one things he could've done to save her life and he didn't do them.

He was young and stupid with a skewed view of the world when he'd met Kei. The Fire Nation had twisted history and his morals to suit its needs and she had been the one to teach him the truth of the world. He was happily married now, but he and his wife, Jia, spent plenty of time discussing his relationship with the last Avatar and the deep scars it'd left on his soul. She'd blown into his life like a storm, destroyed him and everything he believed in, and left him to clean up the mess when she was gone. Her death destroyed him and Jia was the one who helped piece him back together.

Yet despite the pain she'd caused and all the years that had passed—he still loved her. And he owed her a debt.

Jiro lets loose a controlled breath.

"Then we need to re-evaluate resources and manpower. Our top priority is finding the Avatar."

_I won't fail you. Not this time._

**III.**

In the city of Gaoling, there is a girl in a golden cage. 

“Dorjee, darling, come here.”

She does as she is told, layers of silk and silver fluttering around her. She moves like a soft summer breeze, small feet soundless on a white marble floor.

Her betrothed snatches the crook of her elbow in what is sure to look like a gesture of affection and gallantry. The guests _ooh_ and _awh_ as the hand slips from her arm to her waist. It tugs her into his side. The girl’s jaw ticks. They don’t see the green and blue layers of bruises beneath the dress, fingerprints tattooed on her skin. 

“Show them a little trick, won’t you, little bird?” he murmurs, his head dipping until his lips skim the shell of her ear. She pulls back, sees those green eyes glowering down at her with the promise of violence if she says _no_. 

She blinks, inclines her head as anger burns her throat, swallows to wash away the rage. 

The group of politicians and noblemen and wealthy merchants that are gathered around her and her keeper watch in wonder as the girl extends a single, slender hand. A small tornado gathers in her hand, a simple parlor trick that was beaten into her before she even knew what it meant. 

“She’s positively _wonderful_ .”  
“How did you ever find one?”  
“You have to tell me what she’s like in the sack.”

Her betrothed smirks. There’s an art to the way he reduces her to the rank of an exotic pet. 

“A smart man knows when to keep quiet.”

There’s laughter, delight swarming as her betrothed’s charisma wins over a room full of potential investments. 

The grip on her waist never fades. New bruises are created and they join the rest. During a lull in conversation, a promise is whispered in her ear. 

A chill races down her spine. 

**IV.**

"I don't understand how you think this is going to help me," Jinhai grumbles, pulling the lip of his cowl over the lower half of his face.

In the chilly morning, it looks like a simple gesture to fight off the frost—not to conceal his identity. He rolls back on the balls of his feet, toys with the instinct to run, though he's not sure where. _Anywhere but here,_ he decides. He has no interest looking at a dead girl's belongings.

Hotaru tugs on his arm. "Come on. Aren't you the least bit curious about one of your past lives?"

Jinhai scowls at the entrance and the beautiful golden plaque that sits above it. He wants to fight her further on this but one more look at her hopeful smile does him in. "I didn't even know I _had_ past lives until two weeks ago. It's kind of hard to have an attachment to something I didn't even know existed," he grumbles and Hotaru drags him into the museum.

Three years after Avatar Kei died, Gaoling built a museum in her honor. There was a global effort to erect as many Avatar monuments and statues as possible since so many were destroyed during the Air Nomad genocide. While some of older, past Avatars were built—notably, a beautiful shrine had been built for Aang and Yangchen at the Western Air Temple where the surviving airbenders lived—most were styled for Kei, the young swampbender who'd taken on a tyrant and won.

(Or lost, depending on which way you looked at it. Fire Nation loyalists liked to argue that while she may have ended Azulon's life, he'd also ended hers. Most of the world wasn't aware of the Yuyan's involvement and thought Kei died via a lightning bolt to the chest. They also had no idea that Kei used bloodbending to end the Fire Lord's life. That detail had been kept between Jiro and Mela and Azulon's death was pinned on internal bleeding that'd occurred when he was thrown around the capital city like a rag doll.)

Hotaru decided that a field trip to the museum honoring his most recent life would help give him perspective. Most Avatars knew who they were by the time they turned sixteen; a few found out even earlier. And even still, the adults in their lives were always there guiding them towards that destiny whether the kid knew it or not.

No one had been there to teach Jinhai what it meant to be an Avatar. No one had been there to teach him _anything_. Not earthbending, not work ethic, not even how to cook a decent meal. Everything he'd learned, he'd learned on his own through a grueling process of trial and error.

His entire life has been pulled out from underneath him and he feels like he's free-falling. He feels like he's being suffocated. There's no way he can wiggle his way out of this, no way for him to shirk the responsibility and return to the safety (familiarity) of the life he'd cultivated for himself in Xianghao. He _has_ to accept the role that's been thrust upon him. He _has_ to learn to survive this life. 

Thinking about it all at once made his chest tight and his head light. Mastering the elements, the Avatar State, his own spirituality, and global politics all while trying to avoid mobs of people who wanted him dead was... _crazy_ , wasn't it? It can't be him. He's entirely the wrong person.

Jinhai remembers the time after Kei's death. Despite her short reign, she was loved greatly and mourned thoroughly. It took years for her name to slip from every-day conversation, years of fruitless searching for an Avatar they were beginning to doubt existed. Unlike Hotaru, he wasn't in awe with the Water Avatar; frankly, he thought she'd done more harm than good and always held a bitter spot for her in his heart. If he thought about it, it was her fault his mother abandoned him, wasn't it? It was her fault that the Fire Nation was hated and it was her fault the Earth Kingdom hated him and _it was her fault_ that he was a half-breed that no one had ever wanted for one second in their miserable life. All of it, her fault. Another name on a long list of people who had abandoned him.

Now that he's Avatar—now that he _knows_ he's the Avatar—his feelings for the girl have shifted. The bitterness is gone and is filled with... something else. Not quite understanding, but something close. Being the Avatar wasn't something everyone could handle.

He doesn't remember his own Avatar State. In fact, Jinhai has no clue how he chased off the spirits and left the forest at ground zero.

But he does remember the visions that came after. He remembers Kei in the Avatar State as she fought the Fire Lord. He remembers how it burned so hot and bright in her blood and there was the knowledge that there would _never be another person on the planet as long as she breathed_ who would understand what it was like to hold so much power in the confines of her mortal body and soul. How painful it was to hold the ability to destroy and create worlds in her hands, to endure it without breaking.

Jinhai shivers, not at all from the cold. A power like that, so great and terrible, is a terrible burden to carry alone. He squeezes Hotaru's hand a little harder to remind himself that he doesn't have to.

Today, the museum is relatively empty. There are a few tourists but mostly it's just them and a bored teenager sitting behind the front desk, tallying down the number of people who enter the establishment on a piece of parchment. A girl is inspecting a piece of art that depicts Kei and a group of freed airbenders, but she's easy to overlook once Jinhai begins the peruse the displays.

It's only one room, albeit a large one with a vaulted ceiling and elaborate carvings in the moulding. The more Jinhai looks, the more he realizes that the museum isn't just a shrine to Kei but also a tribute to the swampbenders who'd been destroyed as collateral damage in the Twenty Year War and the airbenders who still were a rarity in the world. In the wooden frame that surrounds the mural depicting Kei's life, there are carvings of vines and screeching birds woven around soft waves.

Jinhai stops in front of the mural, takes in the soft brushstrokes with vivid bursts of color. A strange feeling worms its way into his chest when he looks at the beginning of the mural and sees a picture of a large, towering tree _._

"The First Tree," he murmurs, his fingers twitching to reach out and trace lines of its black roots.

"Hmm?" Hotaru hums and Jinhai balls his hands as his side. He shakes his head and says nothing in return.

He feels angry with himself, though he can't exactly pin why. Something keeps prickling the back of his mind, like a fly that keeps buzzing around his ears, and the frustration builds in him. It's _something_ and he doesn't know what it is.

When he's done looking at the mural that, for reasons he doesn't understand, strikes a chord of familiarity in him, he moves onto the mannequin that holds a set of worn battle armor. It's made primarily of leather, though chainmail is woven into it, and pieces of it are stained a dark color.

Jinhai's stomach churns when he realizes it's blood and he desperately pushes away the memory of Kei's death, of lightning and life rushing beneath his fingers and the tip of an arrow buried in his chest. The sign below the armor identifies it as the set she wore into battle not only against Fire Lord Azulon but also in her campaign to liberate the bending prisons.

A bow and quiver are mounted on the wall next to the armor. Jinhai feels a ghostly touch on his arms and shoulders and, if he closes his eyes, he's sure he'll hear someone whispering in his ear as they teach him the proper technique. A male voice. A father, one who obviously isn't his because he doesn't have one.

"Hotaru," he says, suddenly feeling sick to his stomach. It's all so surreal. Somewhere in him lives the soul who'd done these things, worn this armor, _lived this life._

"Are you okay?" she asks immediately as she looks at him, his tan skin several shades paler than it usually is.

He shakes his head. He's buzzing in his skin, his soul several inches outside of his body, like it's lagging behind whenever he takes more than a few steps.

"I'm… I think I'm gonna be sick," he whispers.

His hands shake. Hotaru takes them in her own, which are so, so warm against his freezing skin.

She's touching his face, but he can't really feel it. There are voices, but they're far away. He doesn't feel like he truly exists, rather lives in a strange state of limbo that's neither here nor there.

_Jinhai. Jinhai. Jinhai._

_Are you alright, sir?_

A new voice, soft the way he thinks clouds must be, pulls him from purgatory. He blinks slowly, drags his gaze from a fidgety Hotaru to the stranger.

It's a girl. Jinhai latches onto her, takes catalogue of her features and counts them the way one might count tiles. One nose. Two eyes. Two ears. All accounted for. His breaths stop burning in his chest. A few freckles dot her cheeks and forehead but otherwise its all smooth skin. Nothing to count there. No scars. Feeling returns to his fingertips. A normal mouth with one top lip and one bottom. Neither half overshadows the other. The fog leaves his mind and his thoughts become sharper. Two long, slender arms and, though he can't see her legs through the silk gown she wears, he does count two feet at the bottom of her dress. One. Two. Two. One. _Count_.

(It's an odd technique that Yao taught him when he first started fighting in the ring. He was prone to panic attacks that made him freeze and his former boss had taught him to count people and their features like one would count money until they weren't scary anymore. Though the strange girl isn't the object of his fear, he counts her anyway because the method still brings him a sense of peace and control.)

When Jinhai makes his way back up to her eyes, he pauses. He hadn't taken stock of the color when he'd first counted them. But there's something about her eyes, which are a deep, unusual shade of violet, that reaches into him and chases away the remaining panic.

Suddenly, with his irrational fear gone, he feels very stupid. He scratches the back of his neck and adverts his eyes with embarrassment.

"Um," he stammers. "I'm sorry."

The girl smiles with a closed mouth. There's no judgement in her eyes. She removes a hand from his shoulder, which he hadn't realized she'd placed there to begin with, and tucks a loose piece of very long, shiny black hair behind her ear. She's wearing a pale green _hanfu_ dress that covers her from heel to wrist to neck.

Jinhai resists the blush that tries to sear across his face. _And he just had to have a panic attack in front of one of the prettiest girls he'd ever seen._ His eyes slide to Hotaru and the blush spills into his complexion. If he's lucky, it's not strong enough to overpower his tan. 

"No worries," she says before gesturing to the room with a hand hidden by the sleeve of her dress. "This place can be overwhelming to newcomers. There's an energy here than can sneak up on you if you're not prepared for it."

He nods and swallows hard. "Yes. Absolutely."

"Are you new to the city?" she asks.

Jinhai's spine stiffens. "No, not at all. Why do you want to know?" _Danger. Yao. Run,_ his mind says.

The girl shrugs. Jinhai feels Hotaru shift so she's standing behind him. He reaches for her hand and holds it, hidden between them. "You just don't look like you're from around here." She nods at his clothes, which are still covered in coal dust from his shift at the quarry nearly two and a half weeks ago. There are also the dirt spots from sleeping on the ground while they travelled. Jinhai relaxes a little. Who could this girl hurt anyway? There was something so— _soothing, subdued, placating?—_ about her. "Not a lot of mining around here. We're a white collar bunch. And we've all been to the museum at least once in our life. It's kind of hard not to when Avatar Kei grew up a few miles north of here and we all owe so much to her."

"Oh, well, we're from around here," Hotaru buts in when Jinhai struggles to come up with something that doesn't sound absolutely stupid. He's gnawing on his tongue, which seems to have grown triple in size. _Idiot. Stupid idiot._ "One of the nearby villages, technically, but it's just simpler to say Gaoling, you know? We just returned from visiting family up north in Omashu. Long journey. We had some trouble with bandits. We're pretty tired so I think we'll be going. Thank you for your concern. It was nice meeting you."

Hotaru leaves no room for argument and Jinhai knows if he looks at her, she'll have that look on her face that dares the stranger to challenge her. The stranger's eyes flicker. There's something there, something knowing, that unsettles Jinhai. Especially when her gaze slowly drifts from the battle armor behind him to his face. _Neither this nor that._ "It was no problem," the girl says. "If you find you need help while you're in the city, feel free to come to the Chen Estate. We'd be more than willing to house you while you're here."

The girl bows, stooping low enough that both he and Hotaru can see the top of her head, and leaves. The teenager at the information desk smiles and waves. _A regular, then._

Her feet make no sound on the marble floors and breeze keeps the museum doors open a beat longer than they should be. Jinhai shivers and watches the girl disappear into the morning.

The pair let loose a collective breath.

Hotaru smacks Jinhai's shoulder. He flinches and makes a noise of protest. A knot in his chest untangles. 

"You thought she was pretty," hisses Hotaru.

He snorts and throws an arm around her shoulder before bringing her close. The noose which had sat snug against his throat moments ago has slunk inward and coiled itself around Jinhai's heart. It's easier to hide, easier to smile and put Hotaru at ease, but there's still the feeling that Jinhai is missing _something_. He swats around his head for the fly that buzzes by his ear but hits air.

"Not as pretty as you, beautiful girl."

**V.**

Hotaru and Jinhai find an abandoned textile factory to camp out in while they decide what move to make next. It's not the cleanest or safest place they've ever stayed but when Hotaru makes a joke about slumming it like in the good ol' days, Jinhai decides it's no better or worse than the apartment they had in Xianghao.

He has Hotaru and that's all he needs to make a home.

"I suppose we need to find you a firebending teacher," she says over a dinner of boiled beans and half-eaten bread.

Jinhai hums. They cooked dinner over an open fire which still flickers in front of them. He used kindling and flint to light it just like he had in the countless years before he _knew_ but he considers that if he really wanted to, he could reach out and make it his own. Fill it with his life and force it into his will.

He _is_ a firebender. That's a fact now. The one thing that had truly scared him as a child finally found a way to become truth. But he is also a waterbender now. And an airbender. So does the fire still burn a cruel path in his blood? Or does the water and air and earth stamp it out?

His gut tells him no.

"I don't know where we'll find one. Firebenders have been banned to the islands since the war ended. They're about as rare as airbenders on the continent. And then there's the issue of making sure they don't sell me out to the highest bidder. Let's face it. No one wants an Avatar anymore."

" _I_ didn't want a world without the Avatar. And I know plenty of people who want one. They're just too afraid to say anything and risk angering the gangs. I'll find you a firebending teacher. No one says no to this face."

When he looks at her, she's pulling the corners of her mouth apart with her index fingers hooked in the sides and her eyes are crossed. Jinhai snorts, lets loose a bubbling laughter that soothes the soul.

**VI.**

"Papa, I have news."

"And what is it?"

"You told me to tell you if I saw a boy who looked like this—" Paper flutters as the wanted poster is pulled from inside her dress. "—at the museum. There was a boy. He looks exactly like the paper and he even had a companion like they said he might. I followed them after they left. They're staying in a warehouse in the importing district."

"Very good, little bird. I'll be sure to have the servants bring you an extra treat dinner tonight… Son?"

"Yes, father?"

"Take her back to her room and be back in twenty minutes. We need to discuss how we want to handle the Avatar."

**VII.**

When Hotaru falls asleep that night and he's made sure to rig some traps at the warehouse's entrances to make sure she's safe, Jinhai sneaks out and wanders the city alone.

He's not sure where he's going or why he's out here, but he's been trying and failing to sleep for hours; when he got like this back home— _can he still call it home?_ —he always just went for a walk. He didn't have to worry about Yao's men bothering him because they all knew who he was. Now, he supposes he should be more wary of the hit men who are out to get him but he's not worried about them either. He can still feel the burn of the Avatar State in his body and he's sure it would come rushing to the surface if called.

It takes some time but eventually he wanders out of the importing district and into part of the city set aside to entertain Gaoling's finest. There are bars and brothels, gambling houses and opium dens, all lit up and decorated with colorful paper lamps and and streamers. It's late, well past midnight but laughter, loud and raucous, echoes from within their walls. It's the most dangerous part of the city—for him at least since he knows Yao has connections everywhere—and he knows he shouldn't be there but there's an ache in his soul that demands to be soothed. 

Jinhai pauses outside a bar. Through a window, he can see a young man—beautiful in every traditional sense of the word; black hair, pale skin, brown eyes, and an easy smile—sitting at the counter. A woman sits next to him, her hand on his shoulder, but the man looks bored, disinterested. Jinhai swallows hard and shoves his hands in his pockets. He's debating on whether or not he should go inside and get a drink to chase away the tension he's been running from when the man inside turns. He meets his gaze through the open window. His head tilts. That easy smile spreads across his mouth and his eyebrow arches. 

The invitation is clear. (And Jinhai is more than willing to accept because the warmth of another body has always been able to chase away his demons if only for just a little while.)

Jinhai slinks inside and pushes back the hood of his jacket. He sits down in a chair only two spaces down from the man and raises his hand to flag down the bartender. He orders two shots of _shaojiu_ and knocks the first back quickly. In the corner of his eye, Jinhai watches the man lean over to the woman beside him and whisper something in her ear; then the woman is leaving, a storm of hissed words and indignant grumbles. 

A moment later, he feels the stranger slink one seat closer to him. "Can I buy you another drink?" the man asks.

Jinhai's mouth quirks. "Only if you tell me your name."

The man pauses. Jinhai knows he won't give him his real name. Not when he looks the way he does and he's in a place like this. He's likely got a wife at home and a host of servants waiting for him there and none of them know that their master prefers the company of another man because too many people are like Mama Lu.

Finally, the man says, "Lee."

Jinhai holds back snort and turns to face his companion. There are a million and one Lees in the Earth Kingdom. He offers his own false name in return. "Weisheng."

Lee hums and orders them two more shot glasses of liquor. "As promised." They clink glasses and throw the clear liquid back. Jinhai shudders and relishes the warmth it brings when it pools in his stomach. 

Jinhai smiles and leans in until he's close enough to scent Lee's cologne. There's hints of soap and something spicy that is heady and intoxicating; Jinhai wants nothing more than to gulp down that scent, to see if his skin tastes the same way, if it's rough or soft and if there are callouses on his pretty, rich boy hands. ( _Hotaru smells like tea tree and jasmine,_ he thinks. He conjures the memory of how soft her skin is, the way she feels when she hugs him and holds him close. He shoves the memory away because focusing on it too long will only remind him that she doesn't _love_ _him like that_ and Lee is here and she is not.)

His shoulder brushes Lee's and the other man looks down at him through a haze of thick black eyelashes. Up close, Jinhai can see the starbursts of pale gold in his eyes and the dark smoky ring around the edges. Lee reaches out, winds one of Jinhai's curls around his finger, and his mouth tilts in a smirk as Jinhai leans into the touch.

"You're quite the specimen, you know," Lee says in a low voice that scrapes its teeth along Jinhai's spine. "The patrons here usually aren't so... handsome."

Jinhai's hand goes to Lee's thigh and he brushes his thumb against the inside of it. He needs this. He needs someone to remind him that he's alive, that his body is his own, that he's not alone and that someone, even if only for a moment, is capable of loving him. Lee bites his bottom lip and the grin Jinhai flashes is entirely predatory. "You're a terrible flirt."

"Well, then, Weisheng," he says, "let's skip that part and go straight to what we both want."

Jinhai's hand creeps higher on his thigh. "Sounds perfect to me."

Lee swallows hard again. He flags the bartender down, pays the tab, and when he's done he snatches Jinhai's hand from his thigh and pulls him into one of the bars secret back rooms that they keep there for men and women like Lee. 

In the dark, it's all soft hands and hard grips and teeth on his skin and the hot press of a mouth on his collarbone. Jinhai closes his eyes and focuses on the sensation. He's missed this, missed existing in this moment where the world is simple and his purpose is singular. 

When they're done, Lee straightens his clothes and presses a bag of coins into Jinhai's hand. They share one more heated kiss. Lee's fingers twist tightly into his hair, pulling Jinhai's face down to his own. It hurts but when Lee pulls away Jinhai finds himself wishing for more. 

The stranger leaves without further word.

Once again, Jinhai finds himself alone.

**VIII.**

When Jinhai returns to the warehouse smelling like his cologne with fingerprints bruised into his hips, it's still in the early hours of the morning and Hotaru is still asleep.

His heart twists when he sits next to her, wide awake and terrified as he traces the shape of her nose with his eyes.

He loves her. He loves her with every piece of his soul that he has to offer. But he doesn't think she loves him. Not the way he loves her. There's no reason for him to feel as guilty as he does about his night with Lee but the guilt is still there gnawing at him. He hates himself.

The sun rises slowly. Jinhai doesn't sleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> jinhai is peak bisexual disaster. he is my baby. i will not be taking critiques at this time.
> 
> ———
> 
> NEXT — three | the heir


	4. 3 | the heir

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> tw: allusions to physical abuse.  
> also disclaimer: jinhai's thoughts about his sexuality do not reflect my own. he's insecure about himself in a lot of ways and that's one part of himself he's still working to accept.

**CHAPTER THREE**   
_**the heir** _

**I.**

Jinhai snatches Hotaru's elbow and steers her to an alleyway tucked out of sight. Here, the air is damp and conversation is muted. Laundry hangs strung up on twine above them and mist rises from the rooftops as the morning dew evaporates in the winter sun.

"Any news?" he asks.

"No," Hotaru growls, frustrated, and blows a chunk of hair off her forehead. She throws her hands in the air, stops her foot. Jinhai smiles. "If I mention the word firebender anywhere, people just start spitting and cursing the entire damn race. It seems that the occupation, no matter how short, really left a lasting taste in people's mouths. What about you?"

Jinhai grins—wide and proud—and flashes the pocket on the side of his jacket, which is full of coins and trinkets that'll catch a decent price at an antiques shop. "Like taking candy from a baby." What he's stolen (along with what Lee left him) is enough to buy a good meal and maybe even a room in a bed and breakfast. 

"If we weren't starving and you weren't the Avatar, I would never condone this. You know that right? But if spiced meat doesn't sound so good right now…" she trails off with a hungry moan.

He shrugs, his own mouth watering at the thought of something not dug out of a dumpster. "What are you in the mood for tonight? We could get some good old fashioned Southern Water Tribe noodles. It's been a while since we had some."

"If I may, I suggest trying Kesuk's. They have the best seaweed wraps."

Jinhai jumps and his fist closes. His instincts bring a squadron of stones under his control, ready to launch themselves at whoever has snuck up on them. His time on the run has made him jumpier and more jaded than usual, though that doesn't account for much since he's always been high strung. 

When he sees it's only the girl from the museum, the one with the violet eyes, he doesn't relax; in fact, he bristles further. She'd been kind the other day, but she was a stranger who'd found them twice in a rather large city.

"What are you doing here?" he asks, working to relax his jaw so his words don't sound so harsh.

She smiles. It's that same smile. Two days ago, it was relaxing. Now, it's just unnerving. Jinhai doesn't like the way she stands, the way she holds herself. It's otherworldly and unfamiliar. She doesn't move like any other human he's met; there are no errors or hiccups, simply a smooth stream of motions that continues uninterrupted by even gravity.

"I thought I heard your voices," she says, her red mouth curling into a pleasant, hollow smile. "And I wanted to say hello, as well as re-extend my offer to host you at my master's estate."

"I think we'll be fine," Hotaru says stiffly. Her chin is lifted proudly and her eyes are narrowed, honed in on the stranger's hidden, folded hands. Jinhai knows she doesn't trust the girl–he doesn't either–but there's something different, more vicious, about the way she stands tall now.

"Don't be silly. The Chen Estate has graciously extended you an invitation that most would kill for. It has to be better than whatever hole you're staying in now. If you come with me, we can serve you more Water Tribe noodles than your stomach can handle."

Hotaru steps forward. A sheen of sweat has appeared on her forehead and when the ground groans beneath him, Jinhai knows why. A lance of worry pierces through him and he wants to reach for her, tell her to stop before she's sick, but she's too far gone into whatever protective rage has possessed her. He can see the tension in her shoulders and back, the power that begs to be released somewhere. If he grabs her, it could just as easily set her off or startle her.

"We don't know you. We don't even know your name. I think you need to leave. Now."

The girl falters, a look of panic flashing across her face before it settles into the same smooth face, before stopping a few feet in front of them. Jinhai watches, waits, settles into the neutral jin earth is so well known for. He positions himself behind Hotaru, ready to catch her if she falls, and keeps a steady grip on the earth in case he needs to fight off the purple-eyed girl.

"My name is Dorjee. Like I told you, I'm a ward of the Chen Estate. We've been receiving news of pickpockets in the area," she tries again. Her eyes flicker to the clunky bulge under Jinhai's coat. He shuffles, moves to hide the stolen coins and goods, before Hotaru grips his wrist. "I'd hate to have to report you. I know you've got people looking for you."

"You're threatening us into staying with you at the Chen Estate? Why?"

The girl shakes her head. "Not threatening. Suggesting."

The stones and mortar in the walls surrounding them rattle like skeletons rolling over in their graves. The sound of glass shattering and exploding fills the void. She doesn't need control when she's rippling raw power.

"You need to go," Jinhai says, voice quiet like the beat before thunder, and wraps a hand around Hotaru's elbow. A small stream of blood trickles from Hotaru's nose and settles on her upper lip. Her jaw is tight and her eyes are foggy and her breathing is that certain shallow halt and gasp just before–

Hotaru's jaw locks shut. The dash of blood on the inside of her lips says she's bitten her tongue– _again_ –and her fists are clenched so tightly that knuckles are white.

He catches her when she falls, her muscles too tight to hold her upright. When the rigidity stops, the thrashing begins. This is the part everyone screams at. This is the part everyone cries, _Demon!_

Jinhai expects Dorjee to do the same. She's ward of a wealthy house and they never found peace or solitude among Xianghao's rich. (In fact, Yao was the only one who'd taken Hotaru in stride, but perhaps that was a conversation for another time.)

Instead, she sweeps forward, crouches to the ground so the muddy alleyway stains the pale peach color of her dress stains black.

"Can I help?" she says softly and comfort returns. When he doesn't respond, she takes off her arm wrap and offers it to him. Without words, he takes it and bundles it into a cushion for her head as her eyes continue to blink at rapid fire.

Jinhai's throat feels tight as one minute ticks by and a second follows. Slowly, when a third comes to a close, she stops. Only her foot stays in motion, jerking every ten seconds or so.

_They never last this long. Have they been getting worse and she didn't tell me? Has she been taking her medicine? Why wouldn't she tell me?_

"Do you… do you know of an apothecary nearby that you could purchase a chi-blocking herb from?" he whispers and takes Hotaru's hand in his. Gently, he tries to massage the fingers from their clenched position. "It's called valerian root."

He looks up, stares those into those purple eyes and searches them. Within himself, he seeks out the brightest, fiercest piece, the one he'd always thought was only his inner strength.

When he finds it, he asks: _Can I trust her?_

The reply: _Yes_.

"There's one a few blocks west. I'll be back as soon as I can, Avatar."

Dorjee leaves and Hotaru slowly gains consciousness again. She blinks slowly and her words are tangled and confused, low murmurs that he can't hear but understands nonetheless.

"It's alright. You're alright," he says and holds her to his chest. He scrapes the hair from her forehead and wipes her mouth with the corner of his shirt.

It's not until Dorjee returns that her words truly hit home. Every instinct says to run and hide and fight and do whatever it takes to get away, but the brightest part of him calms him and reassures him.

_Yes. Yes. Yes._

But, first, he feeds the valerian root to Hotaru; it's in a powder form that Dorjee had thought would be consumed easily with a cup of lychee juice. He knows it was expensive, likely costing everything he'd stolen that day, but he doesn't care about costs or debts right now.

When Dorjee blends it into a cup and offers it to him, he hesitates. It could be something else. It could be poison and she could be one of Yao's more subtle assassins. She'll kill Hotaru and then attack him. Can I trust you?

Dorjee meets his stare. A girl's voice as sharp and strong as a steel blade says, _Yes_.

"You called me Avatar," he says.

Dorjee swallows. "Yes."

"Is that why the Chen Estate wants me?"

"Yes."

"Do you work for Yao?"

"No."

"Why do you want to help us?"

"My master thought the Avatar was gone like everyone else. He has connections in the underground market. That's how we heard about you. I kept an eye out for you at the memorial. You're more use alive than you are dead."

A pause. The girl in his arm moans and her eyes twitch under their lids. "Will the Chens help Hotaru?"

"They'll do their very best."

"Then let's go."

**II.**

From a distance, the Chen Estate is breath-taking. It's surrounded by a landscape of green grass and crystalline ponds and flowers brighter than the deepest dyes. Carefully trimmed trees—a vision of a massive, wild banyan-grove tree flashes behind his eyes before evaporating—rise up from the ground and grant their shade in neat rows. It's unlike anything he has seen before, although he's sure Hotaru has seen her fair share of beautiful properties when she mended and embroidered clothes for Xianghao's aristocracy.

Men in silver and green uniforms stand in front of the front gates. None of them are armed, so Jinhai assumes that they too are earthbenders. The house's sigil, an armadillo bear, is gilded into the gate and its large silver teeth glint when the sun hits them just right.

"Good afternoon, Wen," Dorjee says to a guard with eyes brown like the soil. "Send someone ahead and tell Master Chen that I've arrived with the Avatar and his companion. The girl requires a healer so send for Kiran, will you?"

Wen nods and whispers to his partner. The other man disappears under the ground, the earth opening up to swallow him whole. Jinhai blinks and looks from the spot back to Dorjee.

She smiles. "The men find that it's easier to get around with their bending. Don't be alarmed. I'm sure if you asked, one of them would teach you how."

The silver gates inch open, silent as their well-oiled hinges work.

A stone path leads them up a long driveway. The house is the size of his hand, positioned near the center of the property.

Hotaru's is nestled in his arms as he carries her up the path. She's asleep, her fit having taken all she had and more, but he knows he'd be carrying her regardless of whether she was awake or not. After he fed her the valerian root, he and Dorjee had set off the the Chen Estate with an unspoken agreement that she would not harm him and in turn he wouldn't unleash the fury of a threatened Avatar.

Neither he nor Dorjee try to make small talk. He's exhausted—mentally, physically, emotionally. His entire life was uprooted and thrown into the storm less than two weeks ago. Jinhai had been so confused and hurt and scared. He knew Hotaru had seen this and guilt settles in his gut as he considers how much his discovery had affected her, too. It was more than likely his fault that her most recent fit was his fault.

A butler opens the estate's front doors for them, which are as grand and beautiful as the gates. They look to be made of jade—or perhaps just covered in a layer of it—with the same silver accents.

"Mistress Dorjee," the butler says, bowing deeply with his thumb pressed into his palm. "Masters Ju Long and Ahn are in the greeting room ready to receive the Avatar once his companion has been seen to."

"Excellent. Niu, will you take them to Kiran, then? I need to change before Papa and Ahn see the state that my dress is in."

"Of course, Mistress."

Dorjee disappears into a hall to the right. Jinhai watches her go with wary eyes, feels the hammering of his pulse as he enters a lion's den. Feet sliding over wood floors, he follows the man down a long hallway decorated with beautiful artifacts from across the world. Most of the house, except for its stone exterior, is made of wood that looks like it was imported from one of the other nations—likely the Fire Nation—and it provides an eerie sensation of divorce from the earth.

He looks down at Dorjee whose forehead is tucked against his chest. Not that a little distance could stop her from summoning an earthquake.

And wood burned easily. He'd firebent once when he was trying to claw his way out of the river. He could do it again if he needed to, couldn't he?

Niu leads them to a room with high ceilings and a wall of windows that allows the daylight to fall in. A woman in white garments waits by a four-poster bed. When Jinhai lays Hotaru down, the woman immediately hovers over her.

She pulls water from a bowl which wraps around her hands and begins to glow a bright, pure blue. _A waterbender healer._

Easy enough to find in this part of the Earth Kingdom. Thousands of southerners were displaced during the Twenty Year War while the Fire Nation searched for the Avatar in the Water Tribes.

He's not sure how long he stands there, watching the wordless woman push and pull the water over Hotaru's body, but eventually Niu clears his throat and says, "Master Chen is ready to receive you. I assure you, Healer Kiran will do a fine job of healing whatever ails your companion. I can bring you back to her, once your meeting is adjourned."

Jinhai waits a moment longer than he should to respond. Since fighting the spirits in the woods and entering the Avatar State, his mind had been plagued by visions that seemed to occur when they wished to. Earlier, it was the tree. Now, all he saw was an airbender hovering over him and a searing phantom pain that chased through his body.

"Alright," he tells Niu, turning to face the older man. "Let's meet the men who so generously took us in."

He feels like his soul is displaced several inches outside of his body. His fingertips buzz and he wants nothing more than to return to Hotaru, but he knows that's not possible.

The greeting room turns out to be just as ornate as the rest of the home but touches in the design are obviously there to set guests at ease. A fireplace that crackles softly in the corner is surrounded by an intricately carved wooden mantle with dragons and badgermoles shaped into the surface. There are three sofas with emerald green upholstery and vases of native Earth Kingdom flowers are placed wherever there is a free surface. Windows in the room allow for a bright and open space that _does_ effectively make Jinhai feels less trapped in the wooden house.

Jinhai sees Dorjee first. She's changed out of her clothes from before and freshened her makeup and stands with perfect posture that both minimizes the space she takes up and states her proper upbringing. A young man stands at her size with his arm wrapped affectionately around her waist. His hand sits just under her ribs and his eyes are the bright green that Northern Earth Kingdom nobles are known for. Movement from the other side of the room alerts Jinhai to an older man who shares obvious traits with the boy at Dorjee's side.

Frantically, Jinhai tries to remember the bow that Niu performed when greeting Dorjee earlier. Placing his thumb on and open palm, Jinhai bows as deeply as he can.

A loud, hearty laugh nearly sends Jinhai reeling out of his skin. The older man approaches Jinhai, face wrinkled with humor, and claps him on the shoulder.

"Well, I never thought I'd see the day that the Avatar bowed to me! There's no need for formalities, son. It is _us_ that is honored to meet _you_."

Jinhai swallows and shifts his weight.

"But, introductions are in order. You've already met my ward, Dorjee. Let me introduce you to her fiancé and my son, Ahn."

Ahn takes a step forward, his hand lingering on Dorjee's waist, and smiles. It doesn't quite reach his eyes.

"I never thought I'd have the opportunity to meet the Avatar in my lifetime. It's an honor to meet you, Avatar." Ahn bows, a more refined version of Jinhai's lame attempt. "While you stay with us, let us know if you need anything at all. We aim to ensure that your visit is as pleasant as possible."

Unsure of what else to do, Jinhai nods his head in acknowledgement. "Thank you."

"My name is Ju Long Chen. I am the head of the estate. I know that you must feel incredibly uncomfortable and overwhelmed, but I want to reassure you that our main priority is helping you. Many have forgotten what the world is like with an Avatar in it but the Chen family has not. We only wish to help you along in your journey as Avatar."

"Um, well, thank you. Again." Jinhai scratches the back of his neck. He doesn't feel like an Avatar. Not selfless or brave or kind or true, like his predecessors. He's an orphan. And he doesn't deserve the Chen's help.

 _You're an unwanted little brat and that's all you'll ever be,_ Mama Lu always said.

"It's our pleasure," Ju Long says. "Now, Jinhai—may I call you that?"

The Avatar blinks. "That's fine."

"Well, Jinhai, as I was saying, we've heard our stories about you. But they were all told by _daofei_ that men in my employ had the displeasure of meeting. Rumor says that you entered the Avatar State outside of a city called Xianghao. Is this true?" Ju Long picks a piece of fruit out a bowl on a table near the entrance to the room and takes a seat on one of the sofas. He looks so at ease, a stark contrast to Jinhai's fidgety form.

Dorjee and Ahn take a seat on the couch adjacent to Ju Long, which leaves Jinhai as the only one standing. He gets the sudden feeling that he's an animal being lured into a trap before Dorjee smiles at him. It's a small tilt to the lips but it reassures him just enough.

"Uh, yes. That's correct. I was helping my… employer move a shipment when we were attacked by spirits."

"Spirits? That must've been terrifying. I'm not surprised, though. There has been an increase in attacks over the last twenty years, which is unusual. Spirits typically stay impartial to things in the physical world."

"There were rumors that the woods were inhabited by vengeful entities and there were several disappearances, but there was no real evidence. I didn't really keep up with it. I've never been… the most spiritual person, I guess. It's never struck my interest. I've always been more interested in what my hands can do rather than some spirits who live in an entirely different world."

"Well, every Avatar has their own path to create. It's not uncommon for those born into the Earth Cycle to be people of action. Kyoshi wasn't known for her peaceful negotiations and yet she presided over a very long era of peace. And Kei, though not born as a native earthbender, did hail from our great nation and is still called the Conqueror."

Jinhai's fists flex in his lap. Another vision eclipses his vision. He's in another's body this time, looking at a man with a long white beard and crimson red robes.

_Aang was there. He helped me survive._

_He gave you access to our knowledge, our memories._

Swallowing the vision, he provides Ju Long with a nervous smile. "I guess. I'm still adjusting to the idea that I'm now some great savior."

"Of course. And like I said, the Chen household is entirely at your service. Whatever we can do to make the transition easier, we will. We only hope that you remember our service when you mature into your role."

**III.**

The Chen's keep their word and they do as much as they possibly can to help Jinhai adjust to his new role.

A week is spent in their care recovering. Two weeks on the road and streets left both he and Hotaru in worse-for-wear shape.

The waterbender healer, Kiran, manages to mend something in Hotaru's body and provide insight to her condition. She finds him after his first meeting with the Chens and gives more answers in a few minutes than they've ever gotten in a lifetime of searching within Xianghao. (Although it should be noted that Xianghao did not have a waterbender healer; the closest thing to a doctor was an herbalist who had provided them with valerian root and charged an arm and a leg for it.)

"It's a chronic build-up of chi," Kiran says, arms crossed over her chest. They're standing in the hallway outside Hotaru's room and he takes the chance to observe her now that he's met his benefactors and know that his family is being taken care of.

Her hair, a dark, deep brown that borders on black, is pulled into a more feminine style of a wolf's tail with two ponytails on each side of her face and a high tail that hangs down her back in a thick braid. And her eyes remind him of the scales of the tropical fishes Yao kept in his office—a bright, startling turquoise that changed color in the light. While she looks to be at least ten years his senior, she's still stunning. Jinhai notes—somewhat skeptically and bitterly—that the Chen's seem to have a knack for surrounding themselves with things of grandeur and beauty and status.

_A master waterbender healer. An elite security force. Invaluable artifacts from the other nations. A lost Avatar. And Dorjee._

But he had a feeling there was more to Dorjee than her pretty eyes and perfect manners, especially as he looked into Kiran's ocean eyes.

"Chi build-up isn't uncommon among earthbenders since earth requires the use of so much neutral _jin,_ which can lead to blockages in the pathways. The fits Hotaru experiences are actually called seizures. It's still a fairly new discovery among healers so I'm not surprised that people thought she was possessed by a spirit."

Jinhai frowns and bites down on his bottom lip. "If it's just a blockage, why does she continue to get them? Is she going to stop having these now that you've seen her?"

Kiran shakes her head, her braid following the movement. "No. Some benders only experience it once, if at all, while others deal with them consistently like Hotaru. I can't tell you for sure why it varies so much in benders as I've only been able to briefly treat people with similar conditions, but I suspect it has to do with her sensitivity to the earth. She's likely bending or asserting her awareness at all times and that constant use causes the chi to build up when she's not actually _bending_. When there's too much chi in her body, she's forced to expel in with a large bending feat that drains it.

"But, on the other side of the coin, the build-up can also make it difficult to bend with control as it's constantly trying to rush out of the body as quickly as it can. It's not impossible, but it'll take a lot more work. I think learning could even benefit her health long-term and even prevent a disaster from occurring if she can control the rate she expels chi during an episode. She might even be able to eliminate them all together if she can learn how to tune into her chi properly."

"How is it you know more about her in the ten minutes we've known you than the hundreds of doctors we've seen our entire lives?" Jinhai groans and drags a hand over his face. Relief sparks in his chest; for the first time ever, they had somewhere to go. He didn't have to worry she'd get so sick that she'd never recover. They had an answer, even if some of it was only speculation. That alone made their time with the Chen's worth it.

Kiran laughs. "I've traveled quite a bit and healed a lot of people. Don't be too hard on the healers you've seen. The Fire Nation destroyed and spread a lot of false information to prevent healers from being able to properly care for the wounded. Now, I helped push along some of the chi, which should help her for the time being, but she'll need to see a healer frequently if she wants to avoid another episode. I'll be at your disposal as long as you're at the estate, so just tell Niu and I'll be here as soon as possible. I also think she should consider beginning lessons with a master."

Jinhai nods and bows. This time, his form is a little better. Ju Long corrected it with a laugh at the end of their meeting. Even though Jinhai's ears burned red with embarrassment, he took it in stride and committed it to memory so he could avoid being laughed at again.

"I can't thank you enough," he says, swallowing a wierd, hard lump in his throat.

Kiran smiles and places a hand on Jinhai's bicep. "It was my pleasure. Just remember to contact Niu if you need me."

Their second week is less than relaxing, but Jinhai concedes that it needs to be done.

Ju Long arranges a party grand enough to rival the Earth King's birthday and sends out invitations.

"Leave all of the planning to us, son," Ju Long says, "and focus on learning a few firebending tricks to prove to the crowd who you are."

Jinhai wrinkles his nose. "Parlor tricks? Are you sure having a brand new firebender show off in an estate made of wood is smart?"

Ahn makes an agreeable noise. "I suppose we assumed it'd be the logical thing to do since fire is next in the cycle. But we could have Dorjee teach you a thing or two. Air would work all the same."

"Dorjee?"

The heir grins and the hair on Jinhai's neck bristles as light glints off his pearly whites. "Ah, yes. Our little bird is an airbender. Didn't you know?"

**IV.**

The next day, he and Dorjee begin what could be called 'airbending lessons', if what little information she offered could even be considered airbending. It takes less than an hour for her to show him what she knows, and only a few more for Jinhai to put it into practice.

(It's rather startling when he bends air for the first time and it feels nothing like earth. He yells and _accidentally_ sweeps Ahn out of his chair with a larger version of her hand tornado.)

Ahn sits closeby on a stone bench while Dorjee teaches Jinhai. When he learns all she has to offer and begins experimenting with air currents he could turn into full attacks, Ahn declares with a deceptively cheerful voice that Dorjee has a flute lesson to attend. His knuckles are white around her elbow as he escorts her back to the main estate. Jinhai frowns and weaves a leaf through his fingers.

The estate's heir reminds him of Mama Lu.

Dorjee misses dinner for three nights after she shows him how to airbend. When he asks Ahn where she went on the second night, he says, "Dorjee can be a sickly girl. She's resting in her room. Rest assured, we sent a servant to her quarters with something to eat. I'm sure she'll be feeling better soon."

When Dorjee returns to their world, she's quieter, if that's possible, and she smiles more. Large and wide with laughter that never, ever reaches her eyes. She avoids he and Hotaru like they're a plague.

Jinhai has his suspicions. He remembers smiling like that for Mama Lu. _Smile wide enough and you just might make it out alive._ But Dorjee is always with Ahn or nowhere to be found. He asks Hotaru to keep an eye out for the other girl; they both agree something is wrong. Neither seem to be able to get the girl alone.

"The gala is only in two weeks," Hotaru says. "I'm sure I can get her alone there. Ahn will be busy entertaining."

Jinhai grinds his teeth together so hard, he's surprised he hasn't cracked any. "Good. I don't want to stay here much longer after the gala. The Chens give me the creeps and we need to find a firebending teacher, anyway."

"I hope I can convince her to leave with us."

"Me, too. But we both know how hard it can be to leave behind someone like Ahn."

**V.**

After a full month of searching, the answer appears not in a report from one of his scouts but in an invitation from a wealthy estate in Gaoling. He has half a mind to throw it in the fire and not even read the rest of its contents once he sees a shiny, silver insignia on the front–those always mean trouble–but the day has been slow and he's read the rest of his mail for the day.

_ADMIRAL TY JIRO & TY JIA_

With a scoff, he flips the card over, running his thumb over the embossed armadillo bear mid-roar. Leaning back in his chair, he runs a hand over the gray stubble forming on his jaw. _Gray hair._ When did he get so old? It only felt like yesterday that he made an agreement with the Water Tribe Chieftains and the Earth King to search for the Avatar–if there was one–and ward off the _daofei_ and pirates closing in on their great cities.

_The Chen Estate cordially invites  
_ _you to attend our  
_ _GALA & CELEBRATION  
_ _for the discovery of a new Avatar  
_ _First of the New Lunar Year_

_Cocktails & Dinner — half past the seventeenth hour  
_ _Demonstration & Fireworks — twentieth hour_

"In the name of Oma's bastard children," he exclaims and slaps an open palm on his desk. Jiro blinks a few times, rubs his eyes, and then rereads the invitation. "You've got to be kidding me."

One of his men, Ki, pokes his head in through his office door. "Sir, are you alright?"

Jiro straightens in his chair. "No. Send my daughter a letter. Tell her to meet me in Gaoling. Tell her—I've found the Avatar."

**VI.**

Ahn is an arrogant, disgusting excuse for a man and Jinhai hates the way he looks at Hotaru. He hates everything about him, down to the colic in his hair that sits over his forehead, but its those spirits-damned eyes he hates the fucking most.

There's something in his gaze that reminds him of the spirits in the woods. It's oily and slick and completely, wholly predatory. Ahn looks at Hotaru like a starving dog who's finally been provided with a new meal. It's worst when Dorjee sits at Ahn's side.

Jinhai's not the only one to notice. Hotaru finds shelter behind his shoulder whenever they're in the same room as the heir. He hides the way the earth shudders with her bending with a quick shift of his feet. It's not enough, though—not to hide it from Ahn, who's also an earthbender—and he smiles so his two rows of teeth shine behind curled lips.

Every time he stands next to the heir, a feeling slick and putrid spills over Jinhai's skin.

Even now, as they stand in Ahn's training grounds surrounded by miles of stone and earth, Jinhai can't get rid of the uneasy feeling Ahn's presence brings. It's in the eyes, in his posture, in the way he announces his presence. He's a poisonous snake with a beautiful, sparkling pattern painted on his back.

When Ahn challenges the Avatar to a friendly spar—though Ahn's smirk suggests he intends for it to be anything but friendly—Jinhai can't resist accepting.

He's met men— _boys—_ like Ahn before, seen them in the fighters Yao provided.

They like pain. They like the way it smells, tastes, feels, the way it fills the air and runs thick like honey down their throat. It's as essential as air.

On the other side of the field, Ahn bounces on the balls of his feet and cracks his knuckles. His smile is wide and playful. His skin looks as pale and perfect as brand-new porcelain in the afternoon sun, pulled smooth and taught over muscle that hints at years of training.

"Make sure you've got the healer on hand, little bird," Ahn says loud enough for Jinhai to hear. He hates that name, _little bird_ , and it's not even for him. "I don't think either of our competitive spirits is going to let us walk away unharmed." He grins at Jinhai, a conspiratorial thing that makes his skin crawl.

Dorjee nods. Jinhai sees her mouth move, but whatever she says is lost in the distance between them. Ahn grabs his fiancée's hand, brings it to his mouth so he can place a butterfly kiss on the soft blue veins of her wrist.

 _Wish me luck_ , his mouth says. The skin around his eyes feathers. He's lazy with arrogance when he lets her go.

Dorjee's spine goes stiff and her shoulders curve. _Small. Small. Make me small._ Jinhai clenches his fists.

"No, I don't think you'll be walking away from this in one piece," Jinhai says softly, quiet enough that the words remain between him and the presence in his mind that screams for Ahn's throat.

He never intended telling—or showing—the Chen's just how good of an earthbender he was. Better to let them think he's a defenseless thing in need of coddling. But Ahn's challenge and his grip on Dorjee's wrist enrages him so much that the edges of his vision nearly glow white.

When Kiran and few others from the estate's staff have gathered to watch their heir and the Avatar battle, they begin. A challenge means nothing if there isn't a crowd to watch. This, both he and Ahn agree on.

Ahn's very clearly been trained by classical earthbenders. His stances are deep and wide and there's power behind his blows that Jinhai's own style lacks. For the most part, the heir says rooted to the ground and raises pillars of rock to deflect Jinhai's flying boulders instead of dodging or redirecting them.

Despite what he'd like to think, Ahn _is_ talented and his skills go past what can be taught. He's in tune with the earth and uses it as an extension of his body.

But there's an advantage to being taught by criminals—he knows how to exploit weaknesses and he loves doing it.

Jinhai pauses to catch his breath, two twin rocks hovering just outside his raised fists. Sweat and a little bit of blood drips in his eyes. HIs head is pounding, a friendly reminder that the rich brat had gotten the better of him and knocked him down more than once when he shifted the ground under Jinhai when he returned from launching a boulder with a sharp, airborne kick. After the third attack, Jinhai got the feeling that the other boy was toying with him and had sent two rocks toward him—one functioning as a decoy as the other barreled into his ribs.

Now as they both catch their breath, Jinhai watches as Ahn's hand curls into the fabric of his tunic just below his ribcage. It's a below-the-belt shot but Jinhai knows that if he can get the asshole in the air, he can push him back down with a quick blow to the area Ahn is nursing. It'd be an effective way to end the fight and leave an unspoken warning of what he'd do if Ahn acted on his predatory, serpentine instincts.

If Ahn's ribs weren't already broken, they would be; but first, Jinhai needs a distraction to get his awareness away the earth below him.

Using the rocks at his side, he grinds them into a new shape, a long cylindrical shape reminiscent of an airbender glider staff. He rushes forward, sidesteps a pillar that raises to his right, and launches himself. He turns once mid-air, gaining momentum, and then brings the staff around in a vicious arc that howls at it moves.

Air knocks Ahn off his feet and onto the ground. Jinhai suppresses a grin, stomps, and the other boy bounces high into the air when the earth below kicks him up. With another slash from his crude staff, air pushes Ahn back down. He screams on impact and even from this distance, Jinhai can hear the sound of bone breaking.

Those who had come to watch are frozen in their places while Ahn writhes on the ground.

No one has ever treated their master in such a way.

No one's ever held him accountable or truly challenged him.

Jinhai looks to Dorjee. He's not sure what he expects to see, but it's not his. She's rushing forward, falling to her knees to bring his head into her lap as Kiran pulls water from a flask at her side.

Kiran's hands glow as they work over Ahn's broken ribs. Jinhai's forehead wrinkles as he watches, completely and utterly confused. _Why is she helping that bastard?_

Hotaru grabs his elbow. She's the only one who's come to his side and not Ahn's.

He waits. He waits for Dorjee to look up and yell at him. If she's by his side, then… she cares for him. She'll be angry. Has he misread her? Has he misread Ahn? Maybe he's just reflected his own doubts and traumas onto two unrelated people. Maybe Dorjee really was just sick. And maybe she really just doesn't like him and Hotaru.

He's so confused. He waits for her to acknowledge him, tell him he went too far, tell him that he's cruel for hurting her fiancé.

But when she finally does look to him, all he sees is fear, watery in her wide eyes. Hunched shoulders. Tight jaw. The sleeve of her dress rides up to her forearm and it's there he sees them for the first time: the bruises that circle her wrists like bracelets of mottled lavender and ivy in all different stages of healing.

If Kiran sees them, she doesn't acknowledge them. If anyone sees them, they ignore it.

_Do they all know?_

His stomach curls and knots. Ahn will be angry. Jinhai injured his pride in front of his entire household. And the household… doesn't seem to care. Or perhaps they're just as afraid.

He underestimated the reach of Ahn's wrath.

Jinhai wonders if all he's done if make things worse.

**VII.**

Finally, the gala arrives. Niu shoves Jinhai into a green changshan with gold accents and forces one of the maids to attend to his hair, which they cut short around his ears and (temporarily) straighten so the loose curls aren't so wild.

He hates it and is constantly rubbing at it in an attempt to unstick it.

Whatever infinity he thought it'd taken for Niu to dress him was nothing in comparison to Hotaru. Jinhai waits outside her room, leaned against a wall as he inspects his nails.

Finally, the door inches open. With his gaze fixed on his shoes—which, much to his distaste, are tight and have thick soles that separate him from the ground even further—he sees the hem of Hotaru's dress first.

His breath catches before he even sees the rest of her. He already knows. He _knows._

_Not now, you idiot. Not now. Bad timing. Shut up. Don't say anything stupid. Tell her she's pretty and move on with it. Don't–_

"Are you alright?" she asks, voice laced with concern. Her hands reached out and grabs his, and finally he's forced to look up.

He always thought Hotaru was beautiful but right then and there she looked… like something sent from the moon spirit. Completely ethereal. The maid had done something complex and wonderful with her hair so it was pulled back from her face. Usually, she liked to hide behind it, which he typically thought was cute, but now he couldn't understand why she was so shy. With nothing to shadow it, her eyes draw him in first. They are lined with charcoal that bring out the gray flecks in her green eyes. Then there are her lips, which are painted shade of pink. Blush had been rubbed on her checks to give her a flushed look and absently he notices that the maid had also clipped two massive jewels to each ear.

The high life suits Hotaru. He palms his cow lick, which, despite the efforts of many, still curled across his forehead. It does not suit him.

"I'm, uh, fine. Yeah. Fine. You look nice. Pretty. Beautiful, actually." He stammers over his words and resists the urge to smack his forehead. _Such an idiot._

Hotaru laughs. "You clean up pretty well yourself." She reaches up and twists the stray curl on his forehead around her pointer finger. "Though I think I prefer your hair curly."

Jinhai scowls. "Niu thought it'd make me look more 'Earth Kingdom,' whatever that's supposed to mean. Desert tribes apparently aren't counted as apart of the country now. I put my foot down when he tried gluing my eyelids. Who the fuck glues their eyes? I don't care if monolids make me look more Fire Nation. They're _eyelids_. And I _am_ part Fire Nation." He sighs as Hotaru smiles at him and loops his thumbs together. Suddenly, his hands are very interesting. "What if they don't want me? Like _really_ don't want me. Y'know, my own mother didn't want me. And I didn't ask for this. I don't even know if I want this. But it's who I am. I'm trying my hardest to figure out how to be this all-powerful, holy spirit, but no one's even taught me how to be a good person. I _suck_ at being a good person. What if they don't want me, Hotaru? What if—"

"—you're not good enough?" she finishes for him. One hand reaches up to cup the side of his face and he leans into it. Hotaru hadn't had anyone there to teach her how to be good either and yet here she was, easily the best person he knew. "These people aren't your parents and, honestly, who cares what they think about you? They don't know you. They don't know what you've been through. But I know you. And you know you. And we both know that you've got a heart of gold. You protected me at the orphanage when they found out I was sick. And you continued protecting me when we lived on the streets."

"It wasn't entirely for selfless reasons. You're my family. I need you."

"Even if you don't see it, I do. You've got a good heart. I'm not just saying this because you're the Avatar now."

Biting his lip, he dares to question what the Earth Kingdom would do if they found out the rest of him. He vanished for twenty years. He didn't look like a traditional Earth Avatar—whatever that ideal was supposed to look like—and for most of his life he'd made a living by working for the biggest opium dealer in the northern hemisphere. And yet it wasn't any of these things that made him truly scared. Nervous, perhaps, but not scared.

His fear was reserved for something that only a few people knew about. It was why he'd been kicked out of the orphanage. It was why he'd never tell Hotaru— _I love you—_ because something was broken in him and she deserved better than he could offer. Mama Lu, Hotaru, and the men he'd taken up in short-lived relationships or romantic affairs knew.

Jinhai was a good runner. He'd out-run more problems than he could count. But being the Avatar and _this—_ those were two things that would never go away.

"What if they find out," he swallows, "that I've been with men too? That I've loved both men and women? They'll never have me."

"Avatar Kyoshi loved men and women, too, and she's the most celebrated Avatar the Earth Kingdom has ever had. There are close-minded people, Jinhai. There always will be. But you can't change who you love anymore than you can change what you are. You're the Avatar and you're bisexual. They can deal with it. You don't have make yourself small for anyone. And I'll beat anyone who says otherwise to a pulp."

In a single beat of his heart, he pulls Hotaru into a hug as tight as he can muster in his stiff party clothes. His eyes burn at the corners and he bites the inside of his cheek. He places his chin on top of Hotaru's head and thanks the spirits for bringing this girl into his life.

"You know, it might help you if you talk to one of your past lives. They might be able to give you some perspective. I'm sure they all struggled when they first learned they were the Avatar." She pulls him away and straightens the lapels of his shirt. "Maybe you can even talk to Kyoshi. She might have some wisdom to impart on you."

Quickly, he smears the heel of his palm across his eyes and rubs away any tears he might've been about to shed. His lungs ache as he forces them to let out a slow, even breath. "Of course. You're right. I should."

"Now, what do you say about getting to this party? It is being thrown in your honor."

"Absolutely." Jinahi loops his arm through hers. "Let's rock this thing, beautiful girl."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> listen. i would die for jinhai and hotaru. they are Babey and hotaru is so sweet. a complete angel. and dorjee????? a legend.
> 
> ———
> 
> NEXT — four | the reckoning


	5. 4 | the reckoning

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> tw: there's an abuse scene in this, though it's not very long.

**CHAPTER FOUR  
** _**the reckoning** _

**I.**

The entire east wing of the Chen Estate has been dedicated to the gala and a week's worth of work hangs from its ceilings and walls. Lanterns of every color float high above the party and silk tapestries line the edges of the room. Their patterns detail the likenesses of Jinhai's past lives; on the furthest wall, Aang and an unfamiliar female Water Avatar look over the gathering with ferocity in their woven faces.

Toward the front of the hall, tables are grouped around a raised dais, overflowing with fruit and meat and the Earth Kingdom's most famous dishes. (It should be noted that when the term 'Earth Kingdom' is used here, it is used to define the northern-most portion of the continent that most of the nobleborn party-goers hail from; it does not in any way reflect the country as a whole or even Avatar Jinhai's cultural roots, much to his chagrin. It's a lame—and wildly inaccurate—attempt to show he's one of _them_ , not an outsider like some of his features suggest, and that he's worthy of being given a chance.)

Over half of the guests they sent invitations to have arrived. He hovers in the entrance, hidden by shadows, and listens to the racing beat of his heart. Jinhai looks at their painted white faces and red lips and pink cheeks and straight black hair. He swallows— _hard_.

How did he get here?

Hotaru grabs his hand and squeezes it as if she can sense the turmoil growing inside him. "It's going to be alright. Just be your charming self."

"It's hard to believe all of this is for me," he whispers to her out of the side of his mouth. "I don't feel like I deserve this."

"You deserve the best, Avatar or not. Take it in. Enjoy it," she says and kisses him on the cheek. He resists the blush that wants to sear through him from the tips of his hairs to his toes. "I'm going to try and find Dorjee. Maybe I can catch her without Ahn. She's really starting to worry me."

"Yeah, you do that," he murmurs, searching for the heir in the crowd. When he can't find that perfect head of dark hair or a flash of pointed white teeth, he sighs. "Something's not right about that guy. Let me know if you find her."

Hotaru nods and leaves his side. She easily blends in with the crowd and for the first time Jinhai takes in just how refined _her_ features are. She looks like she belongs here, like she's just another girl attending a party with her politician mother or merchant father.

Not for the first time, he wonders who her parents were and how she came to live with him at Mama Lu's Orphanage for Lost Children.

Jinhai shakes the thought away and dives headfirst into the meet-and-greet. He makes quick work of wooing the guests, adapts himself to the person they want from him. He needs their support and he needs to convince them that he's worth giving a chance. _But they don't want you, do they?_ With a simple, disarming smile and a quick introduction, most of the people he meets are eating out of the palm of his hand in minutes. It doesn't do much to assuage his worries but he continues his work anyway.

He claps an older man on the shoulder and offers him a drink. Jinhai smiles, an easy grin that shines like the sun in spring. A shock runs up his arm and the tension in Jinhai's shoulders eases.

"I don't believe we've met," Jinhai says and bows, quickly, with impeccable form. He's been practicing religiously for the gala. "My name is Jinhai."

The man's sharp gaze cuts into him and Jinhai is surprised to see warm amber instead of deep forest green. Cheekbones that mirror his own and a flat thin mouth—there's no mistaking his Fire Nation heritage. So what is he doing here where he's likely hated by the entire room?

"Ah, so you're the one the Chens have made all this fuss for. It's an honor to meet you. You'll have to excuse my manners, but I'll have to wait until the demonstration before I honor you with the title Avatar." His voice is deep, sharp, stern, and the man's uniform suggests a military background—which certainly stands at odds with his heritage since the Fire Nation's military was dismantled soon after the war ended.

Jinhai laughs to hide his puzzled frown. "That's perfectly fine. You're not alone. I'd be skeptical myself if I hadn't already entered the Avatar State. There's no denying it when you've got a hundred people's voices bouncing around in your head like that."

The man hums, his fingers twitching along the hilts of the blades at his side. "Well, in the case that you are who you say, I hope to see more of you in the future. I was very close with the previous Avatar and helped substitute her role after her passing. I'd love to continue my services."

Jinhai blinks. There's an itch in the back of his mind, even as he grows more and more relaxed around this complete stranger. "What's your name?"

"Admiral Ty Jiro," he says.

 _Jiro? Jiro Jiro Jiro—_ that _Jiro._

The Fire Nation jail guard. The one that she— _or he or they because where did Kei's soul end and his begin?—_ had been terrifyingly in love with. Jinhai's heart constricts in his chest. His mind bursts as words he can't control slowly form. He feels like he's being pulled in a thousand directions. _Where to go? Who to see? Who is he?_

"We knew we were going to die," the Avatar says. "It was never your fault. We're just sorry you never met us before we changed so much."

Jinhai clenches his jaw, squeezes his eyes shut as a strong wave of nausea passes over him. He feels like he's been twisted and wrung out, left high and dry after drowning in something _other_.

Jiro watches him. His expression is wary, disturbed even, but he never loses his composure.

"I apologize," Jinhai whispers, pressing a hand to his temple, which suddenly feels as if a pillar of earth has been driven through it. "I'm suddenly not feeling well. If you'll excuse me."

Jinhai leaves and seeks out the table of refreshments available before the main course. He needs a drink. He needs something to wash away the sudden taste of fear and pain that Kei's memories and words have brought.

Dorjee appears next to him as he throws back a tumbler of brandy that's likely older than he is. It travels down his widened throat and singes Kei away. As she recedes, so does the headache and the rolling stomach. Hate for his predecessor burns bright in his gut before fizzling out.

Dorjee's hand hovers on his shoulder. Always light and airy, never making any noise. Jinhai wonders if it's an airbender quality or just something she's learned to avoid Ahn's unforgiving temperament.

"Papa would like you to make your way to the dais. It's time for your demonstration," she says. He barely hears her over the room's chatter.

"Give me a second," he says and pours himself one more drink. _For luck and my nerves_ , he thinks. _And to chase the demons away._ Dorjee eyes the glass nervously and shuffles her feet to put a little more distance between them.

Jinhai redirects the lance of guilt he feels into the vault of tells and words Dorjee has given him. Alone, they mean nothing. Together, they tell him a story that makes him hate Ahn more and more. So much hate burns in his gut. He's beginning to think that _it_ is the source of his stomach ache, not Kei or Jiro or the brandy he's swallowed. He's going to do something to help her. He will. He's just not sure how.

He may have ignored his duties as Avatar for twenty years, but he can start now. He can make a difference _now_.

Jinhai sets the drink he'd poured himself down, untouched. Dorjee's shoulders relax and Jinhai smiles.

"Never mind," he says, looping his arm through hers. He makes sure to keep his own touch light. "Let's give these idiots a show."

**II.**

Jiro watches the Avatar go. His palms are sweaty, but he doesn't dare wipe them on the front of his uniform slacks.

When he received the Chen's invitation, he'd almost wanted the boy to be a charlatan. If Jinhai was a fake, a poser like the others who'd risen in the years after Kei, he would have been able to continue his search and hold onto the purpose that had driven him for twenty years. He could hold onto the boy he'd been.

He wouldn't have to accept that the girl from the swamp, the bright comet of a girl who'd destroyed his life and vanished, was truly gone and she'd been replaced with someone entirely new.

"Father," a voice says next to him, "are you alright? You look like you've seen a ghost."

Jiro turns and is ripped back into the present from the past. He hates that he still misses _her_. He has a wife, who he loves beyond measure, and he has a daughter, who he wouldn't trade for even a lifetime with Kei. He has a life, here in the now, and if given a choice between what he has and something else with the girl he'd loved in his youth, he'd choose the now.

He still loves Kei, but it's not the same.

Jiro wraps his arm around his daughter's side and kisses her forehead. "I'm fine. I just didn't expect this boy to be the real thing." And he is. He can feel it in his gut, feel the way his blood boils when it's near that ancient soul.

She grabs his hand and squeezes. "Mom said you might have trouble with this. She told me to keep an eye on you."

The admiral chuckles. "Your mother knows me too well, Sora. And I'm _your_ father. I'm supposed to be looking out for you."

Sora makes a face that reminds him entirely of Jia. There's no doubting she's her mother's daughter. But he sees himself in her, too. They share the same nose and mouth, the proud set to their shoulders and even the small crook between their two bottom front teeth. No, there isn't anything he would trade for the life he's built.

"Is that him?" Sora asks, pointing to a boy making his way to the front of the room. He towers over the girl at his side, who looks nothing like the companion reports have said he's been travelling with. _That_ girl is likely somewhere else in the room.

Jiro nods. "It is."

"Should I speak to him?"

"I asked you to come with me to this party as my daughter, not a soldier," he says, and his mind calls him a liar. "You're more important to me than any mission or objective, Sora. You don't have to. Most girls your age are concerned with dresses and marriage. Not reconissian missions and world figures."

Sora rolls her eyes and crosses her arms. She looks like her mother. "Father, you forget that I _hate_ dresses." She emphasizes this by tugging on her Earth Kingdom hanfu and revealing the black fabric of trousers she has on underneath. "The Avatar needs help and if I've got the opportunity to do it, I will."

Jiro sighs and grabs his daughter's arm before she can march off. "Well, you'll have to wait for that, baby. It looks like the demonstration is about to begin."

And it is. The girl he'd traveled to the front of the room with is gone, leaving only the boy on the raised stage. Boulders have been brought inside for the boy's earthbending demonstration, but he doesn't see any water jugs for a waterbending display or controls for firebending.

Ju Long Chen stands next to the young Avatar. The nobleman, in comparison to the boy, is a short, stout man with a thick thatch of black hair on his head. His facial hair is styled in a fashion popular in this region of the world—trimmed cleanly around the mouth and allowed to grow long on the chin—and even from his position in the back of the crowd, he can see the distinct shine of his gold jewelry.

He's the perfect image of what every Earth Kingdom citizen should be. Dedicated. Loyal. Generous.

Jiro saw plenty of men like him during the warring period; they are vipers in the cradle.

"First and foremost, I would like to thank you all for attending this celebration tonight. I know that many of you were skeptical when you received the invitation, but you're here and you've given us a chance to prove to you that the Avatar is indeed alive," Ju Long says and nudges the boy forward with a firm, subtle push. "I found Avatar Jinhai on the streets of Gaoling. He had fled his home city after discovering his identity and revealing himself to criminals who sought to end his reign before it even began."

The boy looks incredibly uncomfortable and yet there's a trained confidence to the set of his shoulders. Sora notices this too and whispers her thoughts into his ear.

"Do we know who he was before coming to the Chen Estate?"

"Street fighting. Drug transportation. Helped in intimidation displays. He worked for a thug named Yao, head of the Black Sleeves."

Ju Long continues. "We gave him refuge and protected him from the gangs who pursued him and, in turn, Avatar Jinhai has honored us with the opportunity to be apart of making history. Jinhai has shown the makings of a fine young Avatar, and I sincerely hope you are able to see what I have over the course of tonight's meeting. Now, because I know you are all anxious to see proof that your Avatar has returned, I'll leave the stage to Jinhai as he demonstrates the ability bend earth and air."

Ju Long's robes trail after him as he waddles off stage, leaving the Avatar to stand alone. Servants on the side of the room dim and light candles until the stage is cast in highlights and shadows. Jinhai rocks back on his heels, pulls his mouth into a taut smile. The room takes in a single breath and holds it.

Rocks placed around the dais raise, controlled by a smooth raise of the boy's arms. Jinhai closes his fist and the rocks crumble, fold into themselves and break apart, until a hundred pieces of earth hang suspended in the air. When the boy begins to truly bend, Jiro is surprised by how strange it looks. Unlike most earthbenders he's encountered—both trained benders like King Bumi of Omashu and members of the Dai Li or the self-taught commoners—Jinhai doesn't stay rooted in one spot. His bending is a series of quick kicks and punches. He lands only long enough to reconnect with the earth before rotating his hips again and sending another boulder careening across the room. Good for close quarters, Jiro notes, but he's never met a master who'd formally teach their students this style.

The crowd is awed as earth weaves between and above them, circling in complicated patterns, none of it practical and all of it for show. Every once in a while, the earth reforms itself into an animal and Jiro withholds a chuckle as an armadillo bear, the house's sigil, leaps over his head and pretends to find interest in one woman's feathery hat.

Jinhai's left foot slides into place next to his right and with a deep breath, he bows as he finishes his first display. The party erupts in a short burst of applause. Despite his unconventional style, there's no doubt he's a talented earthbender. Jiro might even classify him as a master.

_But that doesn't make you the Avatar._

The boy's eyes dart from face to face, searching. Doubt begins to claw through the room.

_What is he waiting for?_

_He's lying._

_Is he going to bend or not?_

Whatever—or whomever—he's searching for, he finds because the tension leaks from his body. His shoulders lower and his eyes close and he releases a breath.

Jiro waits. He listens. A shiver shakes his spine.

The windows and doors are closed, locked and sealed shut, and yet a breeze has found its way into the ballroom. The banners on the walls shake and tremble and Jiro is sure that if he closes his eyes he'd feel like he were standing on a mountain's peak. Wind roars in his ears.

He looks nothing like Mela, Kei's airbending master whose bending was smooth and soft and each move bleed into the next like a song. Her air currents were wild and untamed, impossible to fight. Jinhai looks like he's trying to keep a shirshu on a leash, an impossible task to perform. But it's undeniable. He's airbending, even if it is poorly.

A final gale plunges the room into darkness and the servants scramble to relight the candles.

The room is so quiet that Jiro can hear a match striking near the stage.

Ju Long clears his throat. Between the candles blowing out and being relit, he's taken up a spot at the Avatar's side again. His arm is slung around the boy's shoulder and the merchant looks like he's just been told his largest competitor's fleet of ships have sunk to the bottom of the South Sea.

"Ladies and gentlemen."

A beat of silence.

_Twenty years of absence. Twenty years of searching. Twenty years of imbalance._

"The Avatar has returned."

Sora applauds with the rest of the room and elbows her father in the side. "Is he what you expected?"

Jiro looks at the boy. Really, truly looks at him. His Fire Nation eyes. His Si Wong skin. His cocky smile and silver scars that shine on his knuckles and jaw. He tries to imagine what Kei would have looked like up there, with a straight spine and a proud mouth, and realizes he can't. She was no diplomat. She was a conqueror who seized her peace with force and she did the same with her position. The boy's need to appease the people, to prove his worth, was nowhere near the same—but exactly what the world needed anyway, he thinks.

"No," he says. "But he'll do a fine job anyway."

**III.**

Ju Long's voice echoes in Jinhai's ears. There's no escaping anything now. The world knows who he is.

Adrenaline buzzes through each of his nerves. Jinhai can feel their attention—adoration merging and molting with disbelief and a dash of anger. He's dizzy, overwhelmed. He can't breathe. He can't see.

A firm grip guides him off stage as he struggles to ground himself. He focuses on his pulse and makes a conscious effort to slow it. It feels like lightning is zinging between every cell in his body, bouncing and pinging and destroying everything in its path.

Jinhai squeezes his eyes shut and opens them again. Dorjee stands next to him, her hand still latched onto the inside of his elbow. Somehow, she's hidden him away from the party before the guests can swarm him again. They're outside where it's open and cool and the murmur of the party falls away.

"They can be a little overwhelming," she says. "Ju Long has had me perform at their get-togethers before. Airbenders aren't as exciting as the Avatar, but still… I understand. You did great by the way. I've never seen anyone airbend like that before."

Shaking his head, he focuses on the breeze that nips at his cheeks. The moon isn't quite full—it's beginning to wane again—but it reminds Jinhai of the spirits in the forest and the white glow of the Avatar State. It also reminds him that he's a waterbender, too, and as such the moon should give him strength. He should feel it in his veins, pushing and pulling his chi like the ocean. But all he feels is the air and earth around him and the energy of the flickering lanterns lighting the gardens. It provides no strength. Only disappointment.

"I'm an awful airbender, Dorjee, but thank you. You're too kind." Jinhai leans against the wooden railing of the balcony. He's not sure if Hotaru had the chance to get her alone before the demonstration, but now is as good a time as any other. "You know, Hotaru and I will eventually have to leave here and find bending teachers. You could come with us, if you wanted. We'll have to find a firebending master first but we've talked about it and we want to be at the air temple by the end of the year."

Dorjee stiffens like she's waiting for Jinhai to suddenly laugh and reclaim his words. Like she's waiting to be the victim of another cruel joke. He knows the feeling all too well. Mama Lu's hadn't left much room for hope and he'd never thought he'd be able to escape the old hag's abuse. It wasn't until he was forced to leave that he'd realized just how little control she truly had over him.

"I mean it," Jinhai says. "Hotaru and I… we've both been in some pretty tough spots. We know what it's like. Ahn shouldn't be allowed to treat you the way he does."

The girl begins to shake her head violently. Jinhai ducks his head, tries to meet her eyes and communicate what he can't seem to put into words, but she's found a keen interest in the gardens spreading across the grounds in front of them. "No, no, it's nothing like that. The Chens care for me. They've given me a home. It's not Ahn's fault. He just has a temper sometimes and he's warned me not to make him mad. I'm just careless. It's not his fault at all."

Jinhai opens his mouth and closes it before speaking. His heart feels very heavy and sad suddenly as he realizes she truly believes— _it's her fault._ Anger quickly follows the sadness.

 _Bastard,_ he thinks and his eyes drift to her covered arms. He wonders how fresh the bruises are today. He hates that he can't figure out how to help her, that his own selfish needs and wants stop him from anahillating the Chens in turn.

"Still," he says slowly, as if the words will come to him faster this way. He's a smooth-talker, sure, but never when it counts. That's Hotaru's specialty. "You deserve a teacher. I'm sure they'd understand."

"Think about it," he tries again, when he knows his white lie fell flat. "We won't be leaving for a while. We still need to find a firebender to teach me before we leave the estate for good."

"I don't think that'll be necessary."

Jinhai's spine stiffens and his mouth goes sour. As his sides, his hands ball into fists. Dorjee tightens like a string pulled to its snapping point.

"Ahn," he drawls and tries to cover to the scowl threatening to twist his face. "Glad you could find us. What did you think of my performance? Was it to your liking?"

A slew of filthy, dirty words cross Jinhai's mind and he refrains from verbalizing them.

Ahn doesn't answer. His gaze drills into Dorjee whose hands have begun to tremble. A sudden gust of wind blows Jinhai's cowlick into his eyes. His teeth grind together.

"Dorjee, _darling_." Wholly, purely, entirely a predator. His brown eyes glint, but Jinhai doesn't think it's a reflection from the lantern light illuminating the garden. "Why don't you come to greet guests with me? My friends are looking forward to seeing another of your tricks. You know how they love them, little bird."

"Yes, Ahn. Right away," she murmurs. Her eyes won't leave the ground. She shuffles to her fiance's side and when her eyes finally raise, he sees fear, unadulterated.

Jinhai has never killed a man before. Not in the ring. Not in Yao's service. He wasn't a coldblooded killer, and murder was one of his hard limits. But there's something in Ahn's arrogance, the way his posture and smile ooze satisfaction in the color blue and green like a bruise bleeding under the skin, that tells Jinhai to finish him _now_. Stop him _now_. It shocks him how quickly and effortlessly the violence comes to him. It's so familiar and foriegn that Jinhai doesn't know how to react.

Then Kei's presence slinks into his head and he realizes it's not his first instinct at all. He sees Azulon, sees the way his body twitches and pulls under the Avatar's control, hears his voice like metal grating on metal. _What—what are you doing to me?_

 _These men do not deserve to live,_ she hisses. _Only justice will bring peace._

He doesn't realize he's sought out the earth until he feels the tremors of it running up his spine. He's prepared to do it, prepared to end one unjust man before he can take one step further.

But then another voice, this one apart of his heart and not his soul, rings bright like a bell. It's Hotaru, holding his hand, pulling him back from the edge.

_You are not her. She is not you. You're the Avatar, but you are also just Jinhai._

He uncurls his fist.

_There is a better way to end this._

When Ahn turns heel and leaves with Dorjee draped over his arm, Jinhai lets loose a controlled breath. He takes a moment to collect himself and soothe the storm.

Ahn will never know how close to death he came. He will never know how close Jinhai came to letting Kei destroy him.

**IV.**

Inside the party, Jiro's daughter, Sora, has sought out the Avatar's travelling companion. Sora, being only sixteen suns old herself, is surprised at just how small the other girl is. She's the same age as the Avatar—an even twenty—but she looks so much younger.

Sora introduces herself with a greeting traditional to the area she knows the girl and the Avatar are from, linking their arms and brushing their cheeks.

The girl, Hotaru, smiles, looking a little surprised. "I'm surprised you know about that. It's kind of limited to the area I grew up in," she says. "Have you ever been to Xianghao?"

Sora shakes her head and begins to assess the girl and store information away. At this point, it's as natural as breathing. Six years of training at the Northern Water Tribe's Naval Academy has beaten observance and preparation into her. The difficult nature of the school and the prejudice and racism she'd faced even as a nonbender from the Fire Nation had required her to be aware constantly. Hotaru is short and slight and there's a hollowness to her cheeks that falls in line with what Sora knows about the girl being ill. And even though the dress she wears is loose fitting, she can tell the girl lacks the muscles most earthbenders sport.

"I have not," she admits and her cheeks turn pink. "But I did do a little research before coming here. I wanted to make a decent first impression."

Hotaru laughs. Sora notes that the girl is open and kind, perhaps more trusting than she should be, given the situation. _Her body is leaned toward me and her arms are uncrossed. Good._ "Well, color me impressed, you're the first to greet me like that. It's nice to be reminded of home."

"It was my pleasure, miss. I've grown up hearing all about the Avatar and their companions. They're the stuff of legend." Sora pauses and chooses candor over flattery. Hotaru seems level-headed and open-minded, trusting and intelligent. "I've kind of been training my entire life for this. My father was involved with the previous Avatar."

Blood roars in her ears as she waits for a response. Her admission is small but it's an offer. _I want to join you_. She's been training her entire life—but she's never been put in the field before and _spirits be damned_ she's nervous.

"Ty Sora," the other girl murmurs thoughtfully. "What's your father's name?"

"Jiro."

Recognition sparks in Hotaru's eyes and she bites the inside of her cheek. There's a moment where Sora can feel Hotaru's conflict—does she trust a stranger's word? Does she trust a child who knows more than she should? Does she ask the question that's bearing down on her mind? _Are you here because you were a friend to Kei or because you're angry for how she left the world?_

Hotaru opens her mouth. Then closes it. She circles her pointer finger around her thumb. "If Jinhai hasn't met him yet, I'm sure he'd love to. He's still trying to learn as much as he can about his past lives."

Sora tries not to feel disappointed but can't help the way it sours her mouth as the moment passes. Her honor depends on this. She needs to help the Avatar. She needs to redeem her nation.

After that, they make small talk. Sora continues picking up on ticks and quirks and compartmentalizes them. She eases a few answers out of the girl, discovers that the Avatar is searching for teachers and that the Chens are—unsurprisingly—wolfbats in koala sheep's clothing. When they part ways, Sora is more convinced than ever that the Avatar needs protection.

This much Sora learns: Hotaru doesn't trust the Chens and she doesn't trust the crowd. The Avatar needs a team and there is something, though she's not sure what, sinister about the gala. There are too many whispers, too many harsh tongues.

Sora parts ways with the Avatar's travelling companion and searches for the Avatar himself, who has made himself scarce since the demonstration. Her gut coils and her instincts scream, _Find him find him find him_.

As the night goes on, the feeling that something is wrong builds and grows until the short hairs on the back of her neck bristle and she can't unfurl her hands from their defensive form.

She's on the balcony, trying to collect her fraying nerves, when wind and earth explode from the garden. Her hand covers her eyes in an attempt to keep the rising dust out of her eyes and she's glad she's wearing trousers under her dress because the strength of the wind snags it and rips a large portion of it free.

Her mind races and her feeling of unease crests. Power, old and ancient and lost, crawls over her skin.

Party guests begin to filter outside, their curiosity driving them to search out the disaster striking.

A voice cracks through the night sky like lightning splitting a tree, deepened and heightened by ten thousand years of life.

" _I won't let you keep hurting her."_

**V.**

After Dorjee leaves, Jinhai can't bring himself to face the party again.

He's exhausted. His inner turmoil was getting the better of him lately and he wasn't sure how to resolve it. He only knew he had to, or it'd eat him alive.

He felt so inadequate in so many parts of his life. Time and time again, he felt like the universe had made a mistake in making _him_ the Avatar. And he felt broken when it came to his feelings for Hotaru. Something was _wrong_ with him, deep down in his soul, and he hated himself for it. Mama Lu and so many others had only confirmed his fears; and even though they'd all been wrong about so much else, he couldn't help but feel that this was the one thing they were right in. It wasn't natural to feel the way he did about men and women. He couldn't make up his mind about who to love. And he was too casual with his sexual relationships. He couldn't make up his mind about who to be as the Avatar. He couldn't say the right thing to help Dorjee. He couldn't keep Hotaru healthy. He was so defective that even his parents, two people who were supposed to love him unconditionally, had given him away before he was even old enough to stop breastfeeding. And what was to be expected when, more than likely, he'd been a product of rape.

He didn't deserve this party. He didn't deserve anything.

In a world full of massive fuck-ups, Jinhai was sure he was its biggest mistake.

Jinhai slinks his way into the gardens, simply hopping the railing of the balcony and landing solidly on his two feet. Shucking off the outer layer of his uncomfortable party-wear, he's left in his underclothes. It's chilly and he's cold without his changshan but right now the feeling of anything on his skin is too overwhelming for his mind.

It's easier to relax out here where his connection to the earth isn't silenced by wooden floors or a hundred heartbeats. It's easier to hear his own thoughts, stop each one and process them before they spiral out of control.

It's quiet. Nocturnal animals provide him enough noise to finally slow his hummingbird heart.

He breathes a slow breath, places his fists together in a pose that feels so natural even though he's never done it before.

His mind clears like fog vanishing in morning sun. Muscles untense and he feels himself drifting, far, far, _far…_

Ice slams down his spine and he gasps. One word echoes in his mind. Is it a word? A name?

_Kurozuka._

Jinhai closes his eyes again and tries to reach the same place of zen that he was sure nearly connected him to his past lives. But it's gone. A wall has been slammed down. He can feel it as his spirit feathers around the edges of it, bouncing off as it meets resistance.

"What the fuck?" he mumbles and puts his hand on his chin. While his initial anxiety has lessened somewhat—he's still jittery and racing, but it doesn't feel like he's about to swallow his lungs—disappointment makes his body heavy.

He closes his eyes, this time to simply enjoy the night. At the very least, he can relax out here. Find the moment of peace and quiet that's evaded him since arriving at the Estate.

Until he hears them. His heart begins to race again. Not out of fear. Not out of anything other than a terrifying, white hot anger.

"You fucking whore. You just can't keep your legs shut. And thinking you can leave me? Leave us? After everything I've done for you? You told him what father's plan was, didn't you? You betrayed us."

He knows the voice before he sees its owner's face. Ahn's voice is bellowing, heavy-hitting, as loud and unforgiving as the _smack!_ that echoes through the gardens as his hand meets his target.

Jinhai bends a gap in the hedges and steps through it with a single destination in mind. The tightness in his body is back. A migraine presses against the back of his eyes.

"No, I didn't! I swear I didn't. I'm sorry! Ahn, please, _I'm so sorry, I didn't mean it—_ "

"You're a fucking liar! Spirits, you're worthless aren't you? Pathetic. After everything I've done for you, after everything to show you how much I love you, you still going looking for more. It's because he's the Avatar? Of course it is. You'll fuck anything, you gold digging slut."

His voice is a snarl. The crack of a whip in the dead of night.

Jinhai couldn't stop himself even if he wanted to.

One moment he's on the edge of a hidden courtyard, watching as Ahn's hand rears back for another heavy hit. He sees the fear in Dorjee's face, the blood on the corner of her mouth and the bruises on her body as Ahn rips her dress off.

And then he's across it, Ahn sprawled on the ground as Jinhai holds his hand in a death grip. Dorjee is several feet away, sobbing as she cradles her arm to chest. Ahn's fear tastes thick on his tongue and Jinhai doesn't resist the snarl that crosses his face this time.

" _I won't let you keep hurting her,"_ he says and his voice is not his own.

**VI.**

Sora wastes no time and rips the rest of her dress off, leaving her in her trousers and a white undershirt. She knows some of the guests are eyeing her— _of course she's a heathen, she's Fire Nation—_ but she doesn't care.

It's not the first time nor will it be the last they'll hate her for her origins.

And she's got an Avatar to help.

She vaults herself into the gardens, following the winds. They're growing stronger, more violent and dangerous, and Sora knows something awful has happened. He's an inexperienced Avatar with one element under his belt. Of course he can't control the Avatar State. Only danger to his own life or an emotional trigger could summon it. _So which is it?_

At one point in her trek, Sora is forced to whip a dagger from her waistband and plunge it into the ground to anchor herself as a tree is uprooted and soars over her head.

The ground ripples under her body.

She doubles her efforts.

Finally, she makes it what looks like it was once a courtyard with a fountain in the center. Except now, the fountain is shattered and water makes the dirt under her feet sludge. (And yet, interestingly enough,water remains out of Jinhai's arsenal.) She sinks, ankle deep in mud, and can't stop her mouth from dropping open.

Her father once told her what he saw when Kei fought her epic battle against Azulon. She'd launched buildings like they were pebbles, brought the ocean around the capital island to heel, created a storm like the world had never seen before.

"Her eyes were white and I'd never seen something so terrifying and beautiful at the same time," he said.

She'd never understood. Not until now.

There are two figures, one cemented solidly on the ground while the other hovers ten feet in the air, supported by a whirlwind of air. Earth in all shapes and sizes hurls back and forth. She can hardly her own thoughts over the storm.

Most of the grounder's efforts are defensive and nowhere near adequate to survive the onslaught. Blood slips from his nose, the corner of his mouth. His form is sloppy, broken; he's nursing a broken rib, a strained ankle.

 _He's going to kill him,_ she realizes as Jinhai lifts a slab of the ground above his head and the winds intensify.

She panics. Protecting the Avatar surely means protecting him from himself, right? If he kills the Chen heir, the Earth Kingdom will chew him up and spit him right back out. She knows they're already apprehensive about an Avatar with mixed blood.

She'd chi block him if she could but there's no way in the world she'd be able to vault herself up that high. Even she has her limits. So she resorts to another method.

Luckily, Ahn isn't out for the count yet. Sora nearly falls over when the boulder Jinhai had reburies itself back into the ground.

Sora runs to Ahn—the intel she's gathered doesn't make him her favorite person in the world; snobbish, arrogant, and racist enough that she'll be surprised if he accepts her help—and pulls him out of the way as shards of sharpened earth rain down. It's reminiscent of a mid-level waterbending technique taught at the Naval Academy, furthering her confusion as to why he's not just bending water instead of making earth look like it.

"You need to get out of here," she hisses. "He's not in control and he's going to kill you."

Ahn is frothing at the mouth with fury. "How dare he? How _fucking dare he_ attack me?"

"Get out of here. Now."

She'd expected more fight from a man who claimed his honor was so bruised. (At home, men would rather die than run from a fight. They demanded respect. They took it.) But Ahn—she supposes now it should have been obvious—turns heel and run, leaving her alone with the Avatar… and a girl, whose found a hiding place behind a piece of rubble.

With Ahn gone, the girl rises from her hiding spot and approaches Sora.

"Put the blade away. He's not going to hurt us," she says quietly. Her face is soft, a picture of reverence that Sora doesn't understand.

The girl's face is black and blue, cuts dashed all over her body. She assumes they're a result of being caught in the crossfire of Jinhai's Avatar State. Sora looks to the spot in the hedges where Ahn disappeared. Was this a lover's quarrel? Had the Avatar caught his partner in relations with another man?

Sora frowns. She's never read about this girl. So far, reports said he'd only travelled with Hotaru and she'd already met her.

The other girl must see the questioning on her face and lets out a soft sigh, then winces. "He didn't do this. The man you saved—I'm Dorjee, his fiancée. Jinhai's had his suspicions while staying here but… he finally caught Ahn in the act."

Against her will, Sora's mouth falls open in to an 'O'. She takes a look at the bruises one more time, sees how they overlap in age. "He beat you?"

Dorjee pauses, nods her head once, like she hasn't acknowledged this before, not even to herself. "Jinhai caught him doing it again."

Sora looks over her shoulder. The winds have calmed and, slowly, the Avatar is returning to the ground. His eyes are fading, slipping back in a human shade. No longer the fearsome Avatar, Jinhai just looks like exhausted.

When his feet hit the ground, his knees buckle and Sora rushes forward to catch him under the arms.

"What…" he mumbles, blinking blearily. "What's going on? Where am I?"

Dorjee crouches in front of him and touches his face. Jinhai's eyes snap to hers and then he looks at Sora. Her breath catches in her chest. _She's really holding the Avatar._

Jinhai pushes her away and falls on his ass. His head falls into his hands and after a moment, he looks back up.

"I attacked him."

Dorjee nods.

"He's going to turn them against me, isn't he?"

She nods again.

"I need to leave. I need to get to Hotaru and leave."

Sora swivels as gravel crunches. A body barrels into Jinhai, wraps him in a tight hug. _Speak of the devil and they'll arrive._ "What happened?" Hotaru asks, frantic as she searches for injury.

Shaking his head, Jinhai turns his head into Hotaru's shoulder and returns her embrace just as fiercely. Sora squirms as the feeling that she's invading a private moment passes over her. She looks at Dorjee and quirks one side of her mouth. That girl has been through hell and back, that's for sure.

Hotaru and Jinhai share a few whispered words that bring a severe expression to the other girl's face.

"The Chen's security is top-notch. There's no way we're going to make it out in one piece if they're gunning for blood."

Sora clears her throat. Hotaru looks at her and her eyes narrow. She's recalling their earlier conversation.

"If I may, I might be able to help you escape the Estate," she says. "I've trained for situations like this. Even studied blueprints for properties like this."

"Who are you?" Jinhai asks. _Shoulders tense, chin tilted down, hands clenched. Aggressive and ready to attack._

"That's not important. Right now, we need to get you away from the angry mob that's about to reign down upon you for attacking the aristocracy's golden boy."

"I know the grounds just as well as the guards," Dorjee offers, clutching her arm and pushing a piece of hair behind her ear. "I can fact-check whatever she offers and steer her in the right direction."

Mouth grim, Jinhai nods. He stands with Hotaru's help and rolls out the tension and fear in his body, slips back into the street savvy boy she's studied.

"Then let's get moving."

**VII.**

Most of Sora's plan involves evasion but there are two occasions that make Jinhai happy she's aiding instead of hunting them because she is a small, _terrifying_ thing.

"It's called chi blocking," says Sora after she jabs two sharp knuckles into the shoulders and spines of a small group of shoulders. She's tied their headbands around their mouth, left them incapacitated with her hands alone. Their hands aren't bound but they couldn't remove the cloth even if they tried. Sora doesn't seem to be as amazed with the ability as Jinhai is, but he supposes the same could be said for himself. So far, the ability to bend four elements hasn't been that glamorous.

"Where did you learn it?" Hotaru asks. Her hand is laced through Dorjee's.

A smile, nostalgic, crosses the younger girl's face before slipping away. "My father taught me."

With Sora's chi blocking and Dorjee's knowledge of the Estate, the make it outside the outer walls in one piece. Sora doesn't continue on with them.

"I'm needed here," she says. "I need to see what damage has been done and if anyone is going to follow you. But don't worry, you'll see me again."

It's an unspoken agreement between Jinhai and Hotaru that Sora is just as much a part of their team as Dorjee is.

Their flight through the darkness of the sprawling country outside Gaoling terrifies Jinhai. He's waiting for monsters to emerge from the night, attack his found family and force him into an uncontrollable fury.

But nothing ever comes. And, strangely, his mind is quiet. No memories from Kei, following his burst in the Avatar State earlier. No feelings or urges or migraines straining at his eyes.

He feels normal—like he did before the spirits attacked when he was a man and nothing more.

They make it to the docks on the western side of Gaoling just as the sun begins to rise. Rumors are already spreading, consuming the city like a wildfire.

_The Avatar is insane. He's a criminal who can't be trusted._

_He tried to murder the Chen heir in cold blood. And he kidnapped his fiancé, too!_

_We were better off without him. The world doesn't need him anymore._

When they are debating where they should sail to, Dorjee speaks for the first time since they left the Estate. "Makapu," she says and too shocked to argue, they settle on a village neither Hotaru or Jinhai have ever heard of.

Hotaru buys their passage north with money Sora had shoved into her hands. Jinhai hides, sits in shadows next to Dorjee. She's shaking, cold and terrified, but her mouth is pressed firm.

There's a change, he thinks. Or maybe he's just hoping she feels one.

She's not the hopeless, helpless girl she's been told she is.

She's a survivor. He sees it in her scars the same way he sees it in his own.

When they load the boat, they sit behind cargo boxes on the main deck. It's only a fishing vessel headed to the most northwestern part of the kingdom and luckily the captain has no idea who he's just agreed to transport.

They lean against the boxes. Hotaru sits in the middle, squished between the two others. Their shoulders touch and as the boat takes off, they relax into the knowledge that they're safe. They've survived the Chens.

"So what's in Makapu?" Jinhai asks, his voice thick with fatigue. One of his legs is stretched out flat in front of him while the other is crooked. His arm falls over his knee while his head falls against the box.

"Papa–Ju Long–knows a firebender there. Makappu is an importing city for things he brings into the Earth Kingdom. He pays him to make sure that the criminals don't take it. He could teach you, or at least point you in the right direction."

Hotaru claps her hands together. "That's great! Honestly didn't know where we were going to go but you solved that _and_ you got us a firebender."

Jinhai smiles tiredly. "Dorjee, I'm happy to announce that you're now a member of Team Avatar."

Dorjee returns his smile. Her right eye is swollen shut, turning an angry red, but Jinhai is happy to know that it'll be the last time she ever has to recover from a wound like that.

There's a period of time where they do not talk. They listen to the ocean and focus on the heat their bodies share.

"You know, Sora said to me at the party that the Avatar's friendships are the stuff of legends and I have to agree."

"We _are_ pretty badass," Jinhai mumbles in return.

Jinhai thinks about his time at the Chen Estate. It hadn't been all bad, but it definitely wasn't an experience he wanted to revisit. Ahn was a bastard and his father was just as terrible for allowing his son to do what he had. Dorjee had spent her entire life with the Chens. She'd spent eighteen years being groomed and trained and flaunted like a show animal, been twisted into a bird with clipped wings.

But she was an airbender. And those were few and far between. Those who remained all congregated at one of the air temples, their population barely enough to fill one holy ground.

So how did she end up in Gaoling, of all places in the world an airbender could be?

"When did you arrive at the Chens, Dorjee?" he asks. _How?_

The airbender girl bites her lip. Then she tells them a story.

**VIII.**

When Dorjee was a little girl, before Ju Long and Ahn's cruelty surpassed any and all possible points of redemption, she was allowed to choose one place in the city to visit. Her personal tutor would take her—she didn't attend an academy with other children; Ju Long said it was too dangerous for her to leave the estate as the only airbender in the entire province—and this was her time away from the estate.

"A proper lady does need a rounded education of her city," Ju Long conceded. "And Ahn would enjoy my full attention during our business lessons."

There was relief. And maybe excitement. Ahn was a spoiled child with a draconian temperament that only worsened with age. Dorjee wanted nothing more than to get away from his escalating abuse—and who better to save her than the Great Liberator herself?

She always chose the Avatar Kei Memorial. She knew the plaques by heart, knew every stitch and tear in her battle armor. She'd pray to Kei, ask for her to find her and deliver her the way she'd delivered the rest of her people in the war. She'd pray to be taken away somewhere far away to her real parents where she could eat sweet rolls all day long. Somewhere far away from Ahn's fury and Ju Long's blind eye.

When she was older, she prayed for more than just deliverance. She counted the bruises like a rosary and prayed for Kei to end Ahn the way she ended Azulon. _Cruel men deserve cruel deaths._

When her prayers were left unanswered, Dorjee eventually stopped praying. The Avatar was dead. She wasn't going to help her. No one was going to help her. Still, she went to the museum, if only because she thought it was a beautiful place. She liked to look at the art and artifacts and cursing the bronze statue out front gave her a little bit of peace.

No one was going to save her. No one dared question how one of the richest families—second only to the Beifongs—adopted a little airbender girl, how she ended up _so fucking far_ from her people. No one dared question the golden son's adoration. No one questioned him when he said she was clumsy. No one asked her why she was so quiet.

No one asked.

No one cared.

_I am alone._

She liked to imagine that she had two lovely parents with arrows as blue as the sky. They loved her. They wanted her. They searched for her when someone took her away and sold her to Ju Long Chen. (Her earliest memory is of being bound and gagged in a cage. Her second is of being handed over to Ju Long Chen like a piece of cattle. She was three.) Maybe they still look for her. Maybe she had a different name. Maybe they named her after Avatar Yangchen.

If she hadn't been stolen and if she wasn't promised to Ahn, then she would've had a sky bison. And she'd know how to airbend. Not the stupid, useless tricks that Ju Long beat into her. But _real_ airbending. The kind of airbending that made storms and moved mountains and blew and blew until—until it blew the whole world away.

She'd be a real airbender. And if Ahn ever tried to touch her, she'd blow him away, too.

She played a game. She recited what her life would have been like, said it all right before she went to sleep. Then she dreamed of it.

It made life a little easier when Ahn visited her in the morning and took what he wanted.

_No one cares. No one asks._

_I am alone._

Jinhai and Hotaru ask her what she remembers about life before the Chen Estate and the truth is—she remembers nothing. Her mind is so full of _come here, little bird_ and _you stupid bitch_ and _you didn't earn your supper today, little bird_ and her teeth rattling around in her head and _stop, stop, stop, please stop_ that if she ever had any other memories, they're long gone.

For her entire life, her world has always ended and began with Ahn and Ju Long Chen.

But now, as they leave the Chen Estate to be swallowed up by the ocean, she realizes the rest of the world is there, untainted by Ahn's fury. And she's free to see it.

She's not the girl in the memories she used to recite to herself. Not at all. But maybe she'll find someone close to her. Someone strong and fearless and brave.

"Thank you for taking me with you," she says softly, staring into her hands. Her head still throbs and burns where Ahn's rings dug into her scalp. "Thank you for stopping him."

Jinhai smiles at her. His eyes—such unusual eyes, just like hers—waver and his throat bobs as he swallows. He looks so different from the raging, terrifying storm of an Avatar she saw earlier that night. He looks kind. He looks safe.

His hand reaches out and she flinches. She waits for the sting, wherever it may land on her body, instinctively. Instead, there's a light touch on her hand. Then the feeling of… someone holding it. Carefully.

"You're apart of our family now, Dorjee," Jinhai says. "We'll protect you till the very end."

_Someone cared. Someone asked._

_I am not alone._

**IX.**

A boat arrives at the docks of Makapu. Three figures tumble off the deck, two girls and one boy, seasick and worse for wear. But they are here. And they have a goal in mind. They don't stop at the tavern or the local inn. They head straight for the mountain.

The villagers watch the strangers as they make a direct, short path to the base of Mount Makapu where only one man lives.

A small hut rises in the distance.

They do not slow their march.

 _What could they possibly want with him?_ the village wonders. _What do they want with the warrior?_

The smaller of the two girls approaches the door of the hut. She raises her hand. Knocks. _Demands_.

A man opens the door. Amber eyes peer out from behind chipping black paint. His mouth twists.

"Can I help you?" he asks, sneering down at the three.

"Are you Ahote?" the second girl, the one with purple eyes, asks.

"What's it to you?"

The boy steps forward. "My name is Jinhai. I'm the Avatar. I need you to teach me to firebend."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hey now that ahn is dealt with (or is he?) let's move onto bigger and broader things. like fire bending training and the Big Bad. 
> 
> ———
> 
> NEXT — five | the sun warrior


	6. 5 | the sun warrior

**CHAPTER FIVE**   
_**the sun warrior** _

**I.**

The door slams shut in Jinhai's face. He blinks, turns his head and raises an eyebrow at his two companions. _Did he really just do that?_

While Dorjee looks shocked and only shrugs her shoulders, Hotaru looks as if she's about to come undone at the seams. Her forehead is furrowed while her mouth is twisted in the ugliest scowl Jinhai has ever seen.

"Oh, well. Guess this one isn't going to pan out. Should we go back into town and grab some tea?" he asks.

Hotaru stomps forward. Grabbing Jinhai by the shoulder, she pulls him out of the way and hisses, " _Move!"_

She raises her fist. Drums her knuckles on the door for a second time. When the firebender doesn't open back up, Hotaru begins smacking her palms on the door, rapid fire.

Jinhai almost hopes the stranger is smart enough to stay inside. He's known Hotaru long enough to know that he does _not_ want to be on the other end of her anger. Not when she's this tired, frustrated, determined. But, then again, he's not on the other end of it and he can enjoy the show without suffering himself.

He wipes his smirk off his face with the back of his hand.

The door flies open, the hinges creaking.

"The Avatar," the man snarls, leaning into Hotaru's face as he looms over her, "is dead. Gone. Hasn't been around in decades. You can take your con elsewhere _now_ or I'll burn all your pretty fucking hair off."

Ahote emphasizes his threat by raising a hand engulfed in orange fire. Hotaru's eyes flicker to it but she doesn't wince even when the fire draws close to her face. Ahote makes a noise of satisfaction when he assumes he's successfully intimidated Hotaru and takes a step back inside his hut to close the door again.

Before he can get the door shut, Hotaru shoves her foot inside the door and pushes it open with enough strength to send Ahote stumbling into his own living room. For such a small girl, she's always been surprisingly strong. She follows the man into the hut, and the mountain side rumbles.

(Now that they've left the Chens and Kiran, the waterbender healer, Jinhai is going to have to teach her how to earthbend to control her fits. He can feel one coming as the world shakes underfoot.)

"Listen here, buddy," Hotaru says in a deceptively calm voice. Jinhai can't see her, but he can picture her face perfectly in his mind's eye. "My friends and I just spent a week on a boat to get here to talk to _you_ , which wasn't easy, by the way. Despite what I may look like, I'm an earthbender and _I hate the ocean_. We just escaped from the craziest assholes the Earth Kingdom has to offer. Jinhai is on the run for attempted murder and kidnapping and likely treason at this point. Both the _daofei_ and the aristocracy want us dead right now. I am running on four hours of sleep and raw fish. So here's what you're going to do. Jinhai is going to bend for you to prove who he is. And then you're going to teach him how to firebend. Because I am not getting on another boat. And I'm sure as hell not getting on one for as long as it'll take to sail to the Fire Nation."

When Jinhai and Dorjee poke their heads inside the doorframe, the scene they find is laid out as such:

Hotaru has a firm grip on the firebender's ear with one hand while the other is placed on her hip. Ahote is sprawled on the floor, halfway sat up in order to release the pressure on his ear, and his face is twisted in pain. Broken glass and clay is littered across the wooden slat floors and the small kitchen table has been turned on its side.

"Ow! _Fine!_ Fine, just let go of my ear, dammit!"

Hotaru presses down on his ear harder to make a point, eliciting a cry of pain, before making a satisfied noise. When she releases his ear, Ahote scrambles away as fast as he can on his hands and knees. He stands, dusts his pants off, and scowls. When he lets out a tightly reigned breath, smoke billows from his nostrils.

"You're really the Avatar?" he asks.

Jinhai steps into the hut and places his hands in the pockets of a (stolen) pair of trousers. He shrugs. "I guess so."

Ahote sighs and rubs his face. Deliberates how to handle one untrained earthbender, the Avatar, and a thus-far silent companion who looks like she's never worked a day in her life. Black paint flecks off, turns his tan hands smoky. The paint around his eyes looks to be days old.

Then he looks to the roof, places his hands together, and says a quick murmured prayer. Jinhai can't tell if it's one of forgiveness or gratitude, but when he's finished he looks resigned and mildly bored.

"Of course, I'll need you to prove who you are."

"I can do that."

"And if I'm going to teach you, you're going to learn the way I did—through hard work and discipline. If I ask you to jump, you'll ask how high on the way up. Firebending is difficult to learn as a child. As a grown adult… it's even more difficult to train your chi."

"I'm a quick study. And half my lineage is Fire Nation if that means anything."

"Not really," Ahote drawls and his thin eyes narrow. "I'll need you to do one other thing."

"Which is?"

"When I've trained you and you're a master, I'll require payment. You'll go with me to my tribe and help me regain my rightful role as chief."

Jinhai cocks his head in confusion. "Aren't tribes and chiefs like a waterbender thing? Shouldn't you—I don't know—be gunning for your right as Fire Lord or something more appropriate? Warlord?"

Ahote frowns, again. "When you claimed to be of the islands, I assumed you'd have some knowledge of your country's history and culture. I am a Sun Warrior. We are a group of firebenders who live by the old ways and, as such, we do not concern ourselves with politics the same way our brothers do on the main islands. We live isolated in order to connect with the greater world and forge deeper connections with our kinsmen. I have no wish to rule the entire nation. I only want to reclaim my role as chief, which was wrongfully taken from me."

Jinhai considers this. "I need a teacher. You need muscle." He shares a meaningful look with Hotaru and Dorjee and finds no protest in their response. "It's not like I have a whole lot else planned to do or other firebenders lining up to teach me. You've got yourself a deal."

**II.**

Makapu is a sleepy town sandwiched between the mountains and the gulf. Hotaru learns on her third day there that the mountain for which the town is named is really a dormant volcano.

"The fortuneteller says that it won't erupt for a long time. The _clouds_ say so."

A villager tells her this when she makes a trip into town to discover exactly where they'll be spending their time for the unforeseeable future. Hotaru has to resist the urge to smack her forehead, shake the villager by the shoulders. Even she, an orphan with no real education, knows that the _clouds_ didn't determine the future.

"The clouds? What do the clouds have to do with anything?" She does her best to keep her voice even but the disdain on the villager's face tells her she hasn't done a very good job.

"Aunt Daiyu has a book of what the clouds and their shapes mean. She reads them once a month to see if the volcano will erupt and see what fortune the village will receive. Last month's reading said that the volcano won't erupt for a long time. She also said I'd meet the love of my life when I was wearing a yellow flower in my hair!"

Hotaru bites the inside of her cheek and adjusts the basket of cloth on her hip. She wants to ask _how often do you wear a yellow flower in your hair?_ but their presence on the mountain with Ahote has already made them outsiders. And she's pushing her luck already.

"Well," she says, smiling, "I'm sure you'll find them soon."

The more time she spends in town that day, the more she begins to understand that Daiyu's fortunes are largely used to keep the village peaceful and happy. They're ridiculous and harmless prophecies most of the time, but Makapu is tranquil in a way most cities haven't been since before the Twenty Year War and Hotaru understands needing to believe in something higher than yourself. Wu, the fortuneteller's apprentice who can't be more than six or seven suns old, spends most of her time moseying about the village square, settling conflicts and creating matches with information she gleams from other villagers.

Makapu's balance is carefully kept by the Fortuneteller. It doesn't take the woman long to send someone to see who has caused such an uproar in her town.

On her third day into town, it is Wu who helps Hotaru locate the general store where she purchases the cloth to make clothes for their ragtag trio. (It's not hard to figure out that the girl's intentions aren't completely altruistic. Daiyu has sent her to figure out why strangers are seeking help from the firebender on the mountain—how long are they staying, who are they, will they cause any trouble.)

Hotaru gives Wu enough information to keep the town's gossip mill appeased, but keeps enough secret so that they don't suddenly become a beacon to every enemy chasing them.

"Most people don't trust Ahote," Wu tells her when she walks her back through town to the mountain path. "Auntie Day says it's because of the ock-you-pay-shun that happened before I was born."

"The occupation?" Wu nods her confirmation. "I suppose. Some people were like that in my own city. We were lucky enough to avoid the war but a lot of people moved to us and they brought their ideas with them."

"Where are you from?" Wu asks, her big brown eyes sharp beneath a mass of dark curly hair.

"It's far away. I don't think you'd know it."

Wu makes a _hmph!_ noise but doesn't turn back to the village even after her line of questioning has been stubbed out yet again. She's found a row of rocks to walk on and has her arms stretched out at her sides to keep her balanced, her tongue poking out of the corner of her mouth in concentration. Hotaru resists a smile. She may be Daiyu's mole but she's still just a little girl. She remembers being that young, remembers finding fun in such small things.

_Now your best friend is the Avatar, you're on the run, you're homeless, exhausted, and you're due for a seizure any day now._

Hotaru sighs.

_All in a day's work._

When they reach the end of the road and a wooden arc marks the start of the mountain path, she turns to Wu and crouches on her knees to meet her eye to eye.

Hotaru offers her hand. "Thanks for helping me out today. I'm glad to have made a friend."

The apprentice's face lights up and grabs her hand. Wu's hand is infinitesimally smaller than her own and a little sticky, but the happiness on the little girl makes any uncomfort worth it.

"I'll see you later, stranger lady!" Wu says, waving over her shoulder as she skips and runs back into Makappu.

Hotaru watches the girl until she sees the girl make it back to town before realizes before walking up the mountain. She winces when a shiver—the tell-tale sign of a seizure—grips her tight.

When she makes it to Ahote's hut, Jinhai and the firebender are out back and— _are they dancing?_

"How long have they been at this?" she asks Dorjee who's found a spot on a rock nearby. A tornado spirals in the airbender's palm, widening and thinning itself out like a spinning top.

Dorjee sighs. "Since right after you left for town. They were testing Jinhai's limits earlier. Apparently he can bend someone else's fire but he can't make his own. Ahote said this is supposed to help him channel his chi better."

"But… it's a _dance_."

"Sometimes when I saw Kiran bend, I thought her waterbending looked like dancing. It always looked so different from the way… from the way Ahn bent earth. He never moved. It was like he bullied the earth around."

"Ahn was a piece of crap," says Hotaru with a scowl and she slumps to the ground. Digging out her needle, thread, and the fabric she bought in town, she begins on making a new shirt for Dorjee, who refused to steal any clothes and is still wearing a very grimy, torn version of the dress she wore to the gala. "And I saw him bend. He was stupid. I've seen better."

Dorjee looks at Hotaru out of the corner of her eye and her mouth tilts. "Like Jinhai?"

Hotaru shoves her needle through the fabric violently and hisses when it pricks her thumb. Sucking the blood off her finger, she uses it as an excuse to avoid Dorjee's prodding.

"He's definitely better than my ex-fiancé," Dorjee concedes and props her chin on her hand. Her eyebrows slash over her eyes when she mentions her abuser, wrinkling her forehead and the corners of her eyes.

Hotaru had to give it to the girl. She'd expected more… she wasn't sure but it wasn't this. Dorjee had been relatively normal and stable since they arrived in Makapu. During the day, she practiced airbending, albeit hesitantly, and was working her way past the parlor tricks she'd been chained to. She was determined to be more than the _little bird_ and so Dorjee had taken it upon herself to retrieve water from a stream located a mile east each day. There were blisters on her feet and bruises across her shoulders from where the bar laid across her shoulders, but Dorjee didn't seem to mind these bruises. They were a sign that she was becoming self-sufficient and Dorjee was proud of the calousses growing on her hands and feet.

"I was never allowed to work," she told Hotaru, showing her the cracking, raw skin on her palms. "My hands were always soft. These tell me I'm stronger. That I don't have to rely on him ever again."

The only time Dorjee ever seemed to show signs of her previous life were at night. She suffered from terrible nightmares that ripped her from her sleep. Some nights she woke screaming. Others she just cried. Ahote originally let them pile in front of the fire place in his hut but after the third night of Dorjee waking him, he'd helped Jinhai build a lean-to behind the hut and lit them a fire to keep them warm at night.

Ahote wasn't a man of very many words and usually had a sour disposition, but he hadn't seemed mad at Dorjee. Just tired and in search of a solution. He'd actually been rather tender with her so far and though only Hotaru and Jinhai knew what she'd been through, Ahote seemed to understand without having been told and made small efforts to make Dorjee's life simpler.

"But," Dorjee continues and a slash of guilt slides through Hotaru as she tunes back into the other girl's conversation. "I think you might be biased in all things Jinhai related. I may be the world's worst airbender but I'm not stupid or blind. I think even a blind girl could see it."

"What are you talking about?" Hotaru murmurs and begins embroidering a small design on the sleeve of Dorjee's new shirt. It's black thread on white linen, tracing the shape of a raven eagle. _You're not a little bird anymore._

Dorjee makes a noise in the back of her throat. The more Hotaru gets to know the girl, she discovers that Dorjee is spunky—and, sometimes, spunky bleeds into a little bitter and angry, but given the circumstances, she's entitled to her fury.

"Oh, I don't know." Dorjee hums, taps her lip with her pointer finger. Then she leans in close, brushes shoulders with Hotaru. "Maybe I'm talking about the fact that that he's kind of disgustingly in love with you."

Hotaru scoffs. _Absurd_. She can't stop the heat that rushes to the tips of her ears. "He treats me like I'm his little sister. We grew up together and we're each other's family. That's it. That's all it's ever been."

"I doubt it. You didn't see him when you had that seizure in the alley. He was terrified. He carried you all the way to the Estate and only left your side when he was sure you were getting the best treatment possible. And when he was too scared to airbend at the gala, he looked for you in the crowd. He's always aware of where you're at. He blushes anytime you compliment him. And he's always looking for a reason to touch you. It's definitely not sisterly love. Or maybe it is. But if that's sisterly love, I want no part in it."

"You're wrong," she says but doubt wiggles in the back of her mind and she searches Jinhai out on the field. He's still going through forms, his knees bent and his forearms crossed over one another. His face is twisted in concentration but she sees the familiar sheen of irritation in his hazel eyes. She turns back to Dorjee, sees the mischief on her mouth, and scowls.

"And you want to know something even crazier?"

"Absolutely not."

"I think you love him, too—and _not_ like a brother."

Hotaru pauses, sets her embroidery down—the raven eagle is nearly done with deep black feathers and beak of silver thread—and sighs. "I… I don't. He's not… He won't… You wouldn't understand."

"I think I do. I spent enough time watching people when I was with the Chens. I know what I see. You're both stubborn and you both think the same thing, that you only think of the other as a brother or sister. It's stupid." The airbender shrugs and tosses a handful of long, glossy black hair behind her shoulder. It's moments like this one that remind Hotaru of the elegant, perfect girl she was bred to be, down to the flick of her slender wrist and the tilt of her head. For some, the natural response would be jealousy. Hotaru just feels sad. "If you just talk to him, I think you both could stop being so miserable and stop overthinking something so simple."

"Talk to him?" Hotaru gawks. "Tell him? Oh, no. That would be too much. Oh, no. No, ma'am. No, sir."

Dorjee lets lose a sharp laugh. She begins to say something else but she's overshadowed by sudden shouting and the crackle of earth as it moves.

Hotaru places a hand on the ground to sturdy herself and the ground moves out from beneath her and grabs Dorjee's hand before she can slip off the rock she sat on.

Jinhai and Ahote are fighting and the Avatar looks angry. Hotaru hasn't seen him this angry in a while—excluding his assault on Ahn, which she wouldn't classify as angry. That was pure, white-hot fury, calculated and focused, enforced by a long line of powerful souls. This is sloppy rage, the color red and orange with nothing to sustain it.

Ahote is nimble, bending and blocking the earthen attack with graceful streams of fire. His fire is a living, breathing creature kept on a long leash. She'd never seen him bend before but the performance gives her a hint as to why the Chens have paid him to protect shipments and why the village keeps him around for protection from bandits.

When Jinhai's anger fizzles out and he collapses to the ground, crumpled to his knees with his hands dug into the dirt, Hotaru wants nothing more than to go up to him and hug him. She wants to provide comfort. It'd been so hard since they left Xianghao. She'd seen his struggle as clear as day and tried to be the rock he'd needed. Jinhai had spent so long taking care of her; she wants to do the same for him.

Hotaru begins to push herself up off the ground but a sharp shake of Ahote's head tells her that this fit is purposeful. He needs to learn a lesson and so she can't wrap him in her arms, hold his head to her chest.

She sits back down.

Ahote crouches in front of Jinhai. Dorjee's hand squeezes her own, fingernails digging into the back of her hand. Hotaru knows–despite her bravado, despite her sharp edges and tongue, she's still terrified. And outbursts like this one? They take her back to another angry, heavy-hitting hand. Hotaru squeezes Dorjee's hand in return, swipes her thumb over the back of it.

_I am the rock._

"Why won't you bend?" Ahote says. His deep voice is quiet but carries across the clearing easily. "I can feel the fire in you. You've trapped it. Made it small. Why?"

"I'm not _trapping_ anything," Jinhai says through clenched teeth. He spits a mouthful of spit to the side and looks up with sharp, glowering eyes. Hotaru can feel his rage where she sits. "You're just a shit teacher."

Ahote hums and stands. "You can bend," he says again. "But you won't. As the Avatar and per our agreement, you need to learn to firebend. So I ask again: Why?"

Silence hangs over the clearing, sits heavy on her heart. Hotaru knows why. She knows Jinhai's soul in and out, knows who he is outside of the Avatar, and wants him just as he is. She wants the parts even that he hates, the ones he locks away and makes so small.

"I know your face," Ahote says. The black paint around his eyes, freshly-painted today, makes him look like a vengeful spirit. "Our brothers in the mainland share it. You said you have mixed-blood."

"Yes, I do." Jinhai looks to the side, casts his eyes down heavy with shame.

"You hate yourself for it."

Jinhai rocks back onto his heels, sits, and buries his head in his hands. "Yes."

"You hate the half of your body that comes from a place responsible for burning the Foggy Swamp and destroying an entire culture. You hate it because of what was done to the airbenders and what was done to the Water Tribes. You think your blood is bad. You think you are destined to be bad because of your blood. You think it because you can feel the rot in your soul."

"Yes."

"You are right. Fire destroyed all of that."

Another tremor runs through the ground and Hotaru's heart twists as the cracks in Jinhai's armor turn into gaping crevices. Jinhai's origin was something she'd never been able to get him to talk about. It'd always remained a festering, open wound that only worsened the older they got. Now, Ahote was slicing it open, draining the infection, cauterizing the wound so that _finally_ it could heal.

"But fire also freed the airbenders when it was used against the Fire Lord. It is used to keep you warm and to cook your meals. You gather around it and laugh and you feel it when the sun shines on your back. Fire was used by the hundreds of Avatars who came before you and it will be used by the hundreds of Avatars who will follow. Your successor will be born a firebender. Does this make them rotten? Does their body make them wrong? Does my blood, my bending, make me rotten?"

Jinhai pauses, whistles a low breath. A tear makes a track down his cheek. "No, but—"

"My tribe calls itself the Sun Warriors because we believe that firebending is the manifestation of the fire in our soul. It's our life source, the essence of our being, a tiny, little sun held inside our bodies that grants us the ability to bend. It gives us the ability to heal the soul, to create art. You are responsible for what your fire does, not the other way around. So embrace what you are, accept that you are a firebender, and bend."

The Avatar takes a moment, quiets the ragged tempo of his breathing. The tremors in the earth still and there is only the warmth of the coming spring's sun on their backs. Ahote stands firm with his chin raised, a picture of power and control, and he offers his hand to the boy on the ground.

When the boy takes it and rises, he stands taller and lighter. Something unspoken and untouchable lies discarded on the ground, forgotten as he grasps his teacher's hand.

Ahote nods. It's a single, sharp movement of his head, but it says enough. Jinhai falls into the dance, lays his forearm over the other, dips into his knees, and sweeps his ankle around.

This time, it's not just a dance.

This time, fire follows in a burning wake that scorches the path it follows.

**III.**

Once he lets the guilt go, the burden he'd been saddled with since birth, Jinhai finds that he prefers the flame to the earth. It's fast-paced, dangerous, and it quiets the storm in his mind. It burns through his blood, warms the cold places inside him.

He takes to it naturally, as if its as instinctive as breathing. The guilt is still there but the fire keeps it locked away.

The way Ahote teaches him is more than the anger and brutality he'd expected. It devours what he feeds it and his flame has grown under the desire to be _more_.

_More than an orphan. More than a criminal. More than a failure._

He devotes himself to his training. Consumes all that Ahote has to offer. Breathes fire and bends it like he'd done it his entire life.

**IV.**

Dorjee has nightmares. But so does Jinhai.

He doesn't wake screaming like the airbender girl. Rather, he sits up straight, shivers under the cold touch of a finger dragging down his spine, feels tracks on his face from tears he doesn't remember shedding. There's a name. It's whispered in his ear and it falls through his hands like sand, always out of reach.

He can't remember what it is, but he knows it's nothing good. It grinds his teeth together and fills him so full of ice that most nights he sneaks out to practice his firebending, just to put a little warmth back in his body.

The nightmares have done something else, too. Or maybe the nightmares are a side-effect.

The space Kei had begun to occupy since the spirit attack in the forest has been void since he tried to meditate at the Chens' gala. Jinhai can't meditate into the Spirit World or contact his past lives and he's sure it's not just his lack of spirituality. Each time he tries, he finds a hard wall and a force violently throws him back into his body.

He hasn't told Ahote, Dorjee, or even Hotaru. Something always stops him when he tries, like his lips have been sewn shut with one of Hotaru's sharpest needles.

Jinhai bends his fire, chases away the cold, and returns to bed to continue dreaming of something _other —_something evil and cold and with a laughter like glass breaking.

**V.**

When he's not practicing firebending during the day, he's teaching Hotaru how to earthbend at night. They go to a spot a couple miles away, a rocky ravine whose sturdiness easily withstands the chaotic nature of Hotaru's bending.

She struggles to learn control and most of their beginning lessons end in a seizure. It's nearly been enough for him to call it off, to demand they find another way because she _terrifies_ him when she is like that, but she is as stubborn as he is.

Slowly, she learns. It's all basic forms and strong, sturdy stances that he's seen other earthbenders use. The entire earth groans when she bends, shivers and quakes under her reign, and Jinhai gets a workout of his own simply trying to counteract the shockwaves of power that roll off her. He's never seen her so happy when she manages to launch a boulder across the ravine. And even better, the seizures, which had intensified under the stress of his new identity, wane.

Jinhai wants to sigh a breath of relief. It's the longest he's felt safe since the attack in the forest. He's growing into an Avatar people can respect and for the first time he's with people he trusts wholly. But there's always something, always crawling, creeping, and he can't shake the unease in his gut, even when Hotaru grips his hand and leans her head on his shoulder.

He waits for the other shoe to drop.

Eventually, it does.

**VI.**

Despite their best efforts and Ahote's oath of silence—he has ties to the Chens who undoubtedly are searching for their ragtag ground but his desire to go home outweighs his purchased loyalty—it doesn't take long for the village to discover that the Avatar is among them.

It's two months after her arrival that Wu asks her why she didn't tell her that she was travelling with _the Avatar_. (Hotaru suspects that the girl, per Aunt Daiyu's request, followed her to the hut and watched Jinhai train. She both applauds the girl's ability to hide and berates their group's inability to sense her.) Hotaru freezes, quickly excuses herself and runs right back up the mountain.

"They know," she says, stumbling into the clearing where Jinhai is executing a series of quick kicks and punches power by orange fire, and their delicate balance breaks.

Jinhai sighs. Pauses his bending. Sends a rock tumbling–not with bending but with simple physical force–with a sharp kick of his foot.

"We've got to leave, then," he says simply.

They know the whispers will spread past the village and their enemies will begin the hunt again—from the _daofei_ to the Chens to those who simply no longer want an Avatar in their world—so they quickly begin to plan and pack what few belongings they have for the journey to the Western Air Temple. Jinhai, for all his strengths, simply isn't ready to take on his enemies; he's a decent bender, but he's not yet quite an full-fledged Avatar.

"Ahote, are you coming—" Hotaru begins when they discuss the journey of a dinner of grilled fish from the docks.

"This building is not my home. I do not care to leave it," Ahote says matter-of-factly. He slices into Hotaru with sharp eyes and makes a noise of disappointment low in his throat. His nose twists with scorn. "And he needs protection. Neither you nor the airbender are equipped to provide it."

Hotaru—who was by far the most experienced with the town, even more so than Ahote since he never left the mountainside—clears her throat, shaking of the sting of Ahote's words. _I'm learning, aren't I? But it's not enough. He's right. I can't protect him._

"There's another fishing boat we could book passage with to one of the islands near the temple. It's owned by a waterbending family. I talked to the son, Suluk. I got the impression they'd take us just about anywhere if we paid them decently."

Ahote grunts. "I've heard of them. The father died during the nationalist movement that followed the Twenty Year War. Got caught in the crosshairs of a conflict here in town when some Fire Nation citizens were traveling through back to the islands. They'd fallen on some difficult times. His mother isn't fond of any firebenders, period, but Suluk has hired me behind her back for a few protection on some of his more dangerous jobs over the last two years. He'll take us where we need to go."

With their passage west determined and their belongings packed, there isn't much left tying them to the small town of Makapu. Suluk agrees to take them–for a hefty price–and he says the winds and waters will be good near the end of the week.

The days pass. White clouds merge over the limitless peak of Mount Makapu and a bright sun puts a little more color into all of their skin. She's happy, but something she can't quite pin makes it feel temporary. Maybe it's the volcano. She can feel it… _moving_ beneath the mountain. Not awakening. Nothing dangerous like that. But a certain energy that licks at her skin and raises the fine hairs on the back of her neck. She can feel it whispering to her when she sleeps, worming into her mind, speaking in a tongue she's never heard before.

When the whispers grow into a low, deep grumble, she thinks Jinhai can hear it, too. And Dorjee. She's pretty sure the only one immune is Ahote until she sees his face without paint and the dark circles under his eyes are shown all too apparently.

Something in the mountain has changed–or drawn attraction–and it is not a friendly presence.

**VII.**

Dorjee bursts into the hut with terror on her face and a gust of wind hot on her heels.

"Something is coming down the mountain!" she says panting while her hand grips the edge of the door. Her knuckles are white and her hair, which usually sits in a low ponytail, blows every which way.

"What do you mean _something is coming down the mountain_?" Jinhai asks. "All that's up there is magma."

"I don't know. But they're horrific." She chokes on a ragged breath. "They're huge and fast and covered in green scales and their eyes are a terrible yellow."

And suddenly, it's as if Jinhai has seen a ghost. He springs from his spot on the ground, pushes past Dorjee and through the door. The beast she spoke of have charged past Ahote's hut, leaving deep claw marks in the ground as they went.

He knows these beasts. They were in the woods when he entered the Avatar State. They slaughtered the caravan of men, who'd all been talented benders, in minutes.

And, now, they're headed toward the village.

"We have to help them," he says.

Ahote says nothing. Instead, he grabs a pair of arm bracers with a red and orange triangular pattern sewn into it from beside the hearth and pulls them on. (According to the Sun Warrior, they help him focus his bending, though Jinhai isn't sure how that is supposed to work.)

"Let's go. You two, stay here. Neither of you have any sort of offensive training. You'll just get yourself or someone else hurt."

Dorjee makes a sound of protest that Ahote silences with a single look. The airbender shrinks into herself, crosses her arms over her chest, and turns her head to the side.

Jinhai and Ahote make quick work of traveling down the mountain. It's easy to track the beasts even in the dark since their chosen path has left crater-sized paw marks. And finally, when the village begins to scream and fire eats up the straw and wood buildings, they know that the monsters have found their mark.

Jinhai travels on a piece of earth that moves underneath him the way earth moves after an earthquake. Shockwaves of earth propel him forward with each swing of his arms. Ahote keeps pace by running alongside him, each step heightened by a burst of flame from each foot.

When they reach the village, there's no time to stop and make a plan. Time is bleeding together the way it did in Yao's ring and when he dismounts the wave of earth, the first thing Jinhai does is shove a pillar of earth through the belly of a creature. It's all instinct and second-nature and the way the earth feels when it cuts through flesh is an all-too-familiar sensation.

The creature falls onto its back, snapping and howling, acid dripping from its mouth.

The beast takes a step toward him with its row of black teeth on display, falters as blood and ichor seep from the wound in its stomach, and explodes into a cloud of ash.

Its almost-victim, a middle-aged woman, looks between Jinhai and the space where the beast once stood. They share a look, a wordless conversation— _are you alright? Yes —_before Jinhai moves and begins the process of fighting more of the creatures.

It's nighttime but the fire swallowing the village's homes provides enough light to make a false day. This go-around, the light puts him on even-footing. These spirits—though he likes to think of them as monsters, they _are_ spirits—are beings of the night and their advantages are provided in the shadows. Now that he can properly aim, he's cutting down the spirits in bulk, pushing them away from the villagers and giving them a chance to get to safety.

Fire bleeds into earth and air and his blood roars with power and purpose.

When one of them slams into his back, teeth sinking into the flesh of his bicep, he finds that those black teeth drip not only with blood but with poison, too. It's paralyzing and terrifying and he can feel his eyes rolling, searching for a light that refuses to emerge from the dark.

But the light never comes. Whatever shut him out of the Spirit World has cut him off from Kei's unbridled, unforgiving rage. He has no one to protect him but himself.

Jinhai digs his fingers into the earth, grabs a handful of it with his good arm, and wields it like it's a blade before digging it into the skull of the spirit made flesh. Ichor sprays across his face, burns his eyes and he gasps, spluttering to spit out the poison.

The spirit bursts into ash and he lays on the ground, shuddering with his fingers dug into his arm. His blood feels hot and slick beneath his fingers and his mind wanders like smoke in the wind. Around him, he can hear the fight roar on until— _finally —_it comes to an end and the only sound is the crackle of the fire as it digests what remains.

His breath is shallow and with each exhale he can feel the fire breathing, slowing, with him. Even as injured as he is, he can't deny his true identity: that he, the bastard from Xianghao's fighting pits, is a force of nature.

" _Hey, hey, are you alright?_ "

A face—or perhaps it's two because they continue merging and splitting in his vision—appears in front of him. Tan skin, blue eyes, long hair that is tied behind his back in three tails.

" _Oh, shit, here you are. Ahote! Over here. Hold on. Dammit._ "

There's the feeling of being flushed out, like he's being filled to the brim with water like a balloon bursting. And then he's being stitched together. The two faces merge into one and stay that way. Jinhai blinks and the cloud that'd weighed heavy over his mind only moments ago lifts.

And then as soon as the cloud is gone, a wave replaces it, crashing down over his body and he's not strong enough to fight it as it carries him to sleep.

**VIII.**

When Jinhai comes to, he's in a canvas tent and a boy close to his age hovers above him. There's a cut on his forehead just about his left brow and his lip is swollen. Light from a gaslamp shades the stranger's brown face in ebony and dances off the gold loops in his ears.

The boy's mouth moves but Jinhai cannot hear what he says. He rubs his left ear with the heel of his palm and blinks slowly.

A rattling cough seizes Jinhai by the throat. His lungs spasm and burn as a vengeful reminder of the heavy gray soot he'd laid and breathed for hours. The boy bends water out of a pouch at his side and into Jinhai's mouth. The water soothes Jinhai's chest and eases some of the nausea pulsing through him but he still feels like a spinning top on the verge of toppling.

"How are you feeling?" the boy says.

As he begins to push himself up in the cot, his shoulder throbs in protest, though its not near as painful as it should be given the spirit almost ripped his arm right off.

Jinhai places his hand over the bandage wrapped around his shoulder and arm. The wound is there and the spirit's teeth will definitely leave a massive scar, but it's not bleeding like it was or nearly as deep.

"How?" he croaks.

The boy bends water around his hands and the water begins to glow a light blue. With half of his mouth cocked in a smile, he says, "I healed you. Northern Water Tribe technique. I was supposed to be your captain. Suluk, at your service, Avatar."

A figure pulls back the entrance flap of the tent and dips inside. He immediately recognizes it as Ahote. Like Sully, there are obvious signs of battle. A deep purple bruise spreads across Ahote's jaw and his arm is pulled into a sling. His black face paint has been mixed with blood and mud so that his amber eyes peek through like two shining gems.

"Look who's rejoined the living. How are you?" the Sun Warrior says.

"Better than I expected." Jinhai jerks his chin towards the entrance where he can see shadows and light moving beyond the canvas. "What's going on out there? What happened to the spirits?"

"The spirits are gone," says Ahote. "We destroyed a large group of them in the fight but they kept spawning out of the volcano. Then, suddenly, they vanished. We're not sure why."

"What about the people? Are they okay? How many dead?"

Ahote clears his throat. "While you were recovering, Suluk and I put out the majority of the flames and recovered the bodies. There were only five deaths and Dorjee and Hotaru are helping the injured now. We found a safe place for the survivors to stay to the east and made camp." There's a pause before he continues. "Some of the children are missing. And they're not among… those recovered. We think the spirits took them."

"My sister is missing," Suluk says after a moment. His mouth is drawn tight and his eyes are slanted with grief, any humor from before long gone. "I lost her in the fight and haven't seen her since."

"He's agreed to still take us to the air temple, but he's going to stay with us," Ahote says.

"I figure if anyone has a shot of finding my sister… well, it's _you_. Help me find her, please. Help me, and I'll teach you everything you need to know about waterbending."

**IX.**

_Sora,_

_The United Republic is sending me back to the Fire Nation. Whatever balance the interment ruler found is gone. The country has fallen into chaos again. The people are rioting and the mobs threaten the walls of the capital for the first time in a decade._

_It appears twenty years wasn't enough for the loyalists' influence to die out; their numbers are strong and they're still very angry. They claim Iroh is weak for allowing the republic to force their country into submission. That, and the fear that Jinhai's emergence has brought will likely make my stay in the Fire Nation a long and tedious one. The republic wants the Fire Nation to see peace, but are unwilling to put resources into the effort. For all the good they've done, they don't seem to realize depriving the Fire Nation and keeping them in poverty is doing more harm than good._

_I will not be able to meet you to escort the boy while he grows into a fully-realized Avatar._

_But I trust that you will be able to handle this job. Send me letters by hawk to update me of your safety when you can and I'll share them with Jia. You know how your mother gets._

_Love,_

_Your Father_

_p.s. has there been any news of more spirit attacks or missing people? I may not be able to be there to help you resolve the issue but I can pass the information along to my lieutenant._

**X.**

_Father,_

_I've followed the Avatar's trail north to a town called Makappu. It was recently attacked by spirits that fit the same description as the other sightings in the Earth Kingdom. The spirits also took three children during the attack, none of which have been seen or found since. Hopefully your lieutenant can find some kind of information as to why they've been so volatile and where the missing can be found._

_I spoke with the survivors and they say that it was the Avatar who helped fight the spirits off. After, he set west on a boat for the air temple only a few days ago._

_I'll be heading that way. Seeing as he booked passage on a ship, I should be able to make it there ahead of them on the airship. I'll send another hawk when I arrive._

_Stay safe,_

_Sora_

_p.s. tell mother I'll be fine. But, if she'd like to send some treats along with the next letter, I'd much appreciate it._

**XI.**

When they reach the air temple, they stand at the base of a mountain so high that the temple that sits atop it vanishes deep into the clouds.

They aren't there for long, deliberating on how they'll reach the peak when two members of their crew are injured and it's ordinarily reached by sky bison to begin with, when something emerges out of the horizon.

It starts as a small dot on the sky. But as the moments pass, it grows larger and larger, until that dot grows horns and arrows appear on its white fur.

"Is that a…?" Hotaru begins, hand cupped over her eyes.

"It's a _sky bison_!" Dorjee exclaims. Her hands clap together and a smile–a _true_ smile–bursts across her face. A giddy laugh slips past her lips and even Ahote (who is known for his sour frown and gruff demeanor) can't stop a smile from passing over his face at the unadulterated joy radiating from Dorjee.

When the sky bison and its companion land, the airbender girl is buzzing with energy.

The rider dismounts the bison and flutters to the ground on a soft wind. His robes catch around him and spin and whorl, like butterfly wings.

He looks at them, all five of them in their bloodied clothes (because the fight never, ever seems to stop), and smiles. It's subtle, aged properly around the mouth with good humor.

"Come," the monk says. "There's someone who's been waiting to meet you for a long time, Avatar."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> oop. the spirits are back again and more people are missing. things are heating up. rip.
> 
> ———
> 
> NEXT: six | the western air temple


	7. 7 | the western air temple

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hello, babies! i hope everyone had a good holiday season. i tried working on this fic while i was on winter break but quickly discovered this is what i write when i'm stressed... ergo when i'm at school. so i ended up putting some work into my original project over the break and picked this fic back up and wrote close to 20k words over the last week while i was nigh on a mental breakdown. yeehaw, folks. textbooks are expensive. so next wednesday, i promise another update so keep an eye for for that one. it's a fun one. (it's already written and edited and ready to go. but i figure i'll give y'all time to process this whole ass chapter and mentally prepare for the next.)
> 
> even tho she never actually reads the chapters themselves on ff or ao3 and reads them on my google doc, i'm writing a quick shout out and thank u to my bff who i shall call leigh baby. without her, half of my sentences would remain unfinished bc my adhd brain can't finish shit half the time. she's the best editor a girl can ask for and u can definitely tell when a chapter got posted without her revision. so! appreciate her!
> 
> also. this story got fan art!!!!! i cannot express my fucking excitement over it. wonderful. perfect. amazing. the lovely DeadlyJellybaby created it and when i say u made my day u made my whole year. wow. 
> 
> [click here](https://i-would-like-some-tea.tumblr.com/post/190310255123/fanart-for-with-even-the-darkest-night-comes-a) if u wanna see some fan art!!

**CHAPTER SIX  
_the western air temple_**

**I.**

Instead of making an ascent into the sky, the bison makes a loop around the mountain and dives downward with a groan. The wind rips and tugs at Jinhai's hair, tangling the curls into a ratty mess. When he works up the courage to open his eyes, which he'd squeezed shut at takeoff, he finds that Hotaru is gripping the edges of the saddle with white knuckles and a green face much like he is.

Sure, he has the potential to be a master airbender but he is an earthbender at heart and he much prefers the ground to the sky.

Dorjee, however, seems much more at home. Instead of finding her a point of resistance, the wind flows around her like water splitting around a stone in the river.

Jinhai shuts his eyes again when his stomach rolls. "Someone tell me when we're there and I'll open my eyes!"

Someone laughs and the tinkling, feather-light quality tells him it's Dorjee.

"Jinhai, we _are_ here. Look!"

Peeling his eyes open, he sees Dorjee nearly leaning out of the bison's saddle, pointing to the right with a finger stretched as far is it will go. Ahote's hand hovers by her calf, ready to take hold if she slips. Jinhai follows the line of her arm and sucks in a breath.

The temples are all upside down, attached to the lip of a cliff on the other side of the mountain. Gold accents shine on the top— _or the bottom? —_of each building. The gray stone is polished and ivy thrives as it spiders along the walls. Animals fly and swing between the buildings recklessly, letting loose screeches and howls that he can hear even over the wind. But the closer they get, the easier it is to see where the corners of the buildings have been patched and where scorch marks refuse to be scrubbed out.

Jinhai swallows hard. In two years, it'd be the forty-year anniversary of the Air Nomad Genocide. The survivors were hunted for eighteen years before Fire Lord Azulon was killed and they were allowed to return to their homes. But then, he knew, there were those like Dorjee who'd been sold and enslaved and others who simply never made it home.

His heart swells when they land and he can feel the energy and life swirling all around him. He presses the heel of his palm into his eye to stave off the burn of tears.

"Are you alright?" Hotaru asks, placing a hand on his shoulder.

"Yeah, I'm fine. I don't know what it is. There's just something about this place."

Maybe it's the fountain gurgling just in front of him, its water clean and clear. Or the laughter of two little girls rushing past him on air scooters. Or the lemurs chattering above him as they fly between the steeples of the upside down towers. He's not sure. He just knows that his heart feels as if it's swelling and bursting, both happy and sad. Life has returned to this temple in bright, beautiful sounds and smells and sights—but it is the only one like it. The other three remain empty.

The monk who escorted them to the hidden temple waits as the heavy moment passes. When Jinhai finally pulls together his fraying pieces, he drags his thumbs under his eyes to wipe away the tears. Hotaru's hand is warm on his shoulder and his places his own over it to reassure her.

She removes her hand but before she can fully retreat, he grabs it with his own and laces his fingers through hers.

Jinhai feels her stiffen before relaxing into his touch.

"Are you ready?" the monk asks.

Nodding, Jinhai follows the monk with Hotaru's hand in his grasp. The airbender leads them deeper into the Western Air Temple where murals of their people have been restored in thick lines and bright colors. Towards the end of the hall, a new painting—marked so because the style is different and its subject is recent—depicts the genocide. Bold shades of orange and red make up a striking comet and the Fire Nation soldiers forever remain in position to kill.

They come to a chamber where the air is cooler. Sun streams in through open windows cut into the rock, illuminating the worn rug that a single woman sits upon. With her legs crossed, arms folded, and eyes closed, she poses before a statute of a young boy. Arrows are carved into body and his face is youthful and mischievous. A glider staff is situated in his hand—a real glider staff made of bamboo and cloth, not one carved from stone—and before Jinhai can even begin to wonder who it is, the name comes to him.

 _Aang_.

The woman opens her eyes and looks to the monk who brought them to her. "Thank you, Yangkey. I'll take it from here."

Yangkey bows, hands poised differently than the way Jinhai learned with the Chens, and leaves the room. His steps make no noise as he walks.

With the monk gone, the woman turns her attention to the group of teenagers brought to her. Her gaze wanders over them, taking in the cuts and bruises and their posture, before settling on Jinhai.

She bows to him and Jinhai shuffles his feet, suddenly uncomfortable.

"You must be Avatar Jinhai," she says and smiles. "It's an honor to meet you."

Jinhai clears his throat. "Well… thank you for receiving us?"

The woman laughs. Like Dorjee, there's a quality to it that carries throughout the room. "My name is Mela. I was your past-life's airbending master. And now it seems that my life has come full circle as I'll be teaching you again. Please, introduce me to your companions."

**II.**

Jinhai introduces the members of his ragtag group one by one.

Suluk, the newest member of their group and— _apparently —_his to-be waterbending master. Ahote, the banished Sun Warrior chieftain and his firebending master. Hotaru, the first member of his family and his rock. (She's also the girl he's been in love with since he was fourteen years old, but he keeps that part to himself.)

When he reaches Dorjee, he pauses and clears his throat. She's staring at him with large, hopeful eyes and he nods at her. This is one thing he knows he can do for her, one thing to make right the wrongs the Avatar has done against her and her people. "This is Dorjee. She's been with us since we were in Gaoling. She's an airbender; she needs a teacher too, so she needs to learn with me. That won't be a problem, will it?"

Mela inspects Dorjee—takes in the raven eagle sewn into her shirt that she wears so proudly and the raw skin of her knuckles where they've cracked and bled during the sparring sessions she begged Ahote to have with her; most importantly, she looks at the set of her jaw that says she's preparing for the strike, the next blow, the tense line of her slight shoulders that says she expects to be thrown aside.

_A little bird. Nothing more._

Jinhai can hear Ahn's voice in his head as clear as day. He's sure Dorjee can too.

"Of course not," Mela murmurs, the crow's feet at the corner of her eyes wrinkling. Without warning, Mela steps forward and cups Dorjee's face with her hands. Then she presses her tattooed forehead to the younger girl's and closes her eyes. Her mouth moves as she says a silent prayer. "It's okay. You can breathe again. You're home."

Dorjee's bottom lip quivers as she stares at the strange woman holding her so closely. It's an intimate moment that nearly forces Jinhai to avert his attention. Her face tightens and her violet eyes shimmer. Moments later, she's in the airbending master's arms, openly weeping.

**III.**

Later that evening, when they've all settled in and washed away the grime of their journey, they join Mela in the temple's dining area. It's an open room with a single, long chabudai table extending the length of it. Dumplings, rice, steamed tofu, and a variety of fruits and vegetables are laid out upon its surface.

Most of the temple's inhabitants are already there when their group arrives and they quiet when Jinhai enters the room.

He knows his identity is obvious. While talking to the airbenders who helped them settle, he discovered—much to his horror—his mixed ancestry had become a global source of gossip that even reached the secluded Western Air Temple. The gossip and the fact that his features stick out like a sore thumb in a sea of gray eyes, pale skin, and straight, dark hair does little to hide his identity. The only one that looks as out of place as he does is Suluk, whose Water Tribe origins are undeniable and the farthest thing from a traditional airbender as possible.

"I trust you settled in well," Mela says in greeting when she spots them frozen at the entrance of the room. Jinhai's hand tenses where it rests on the small of Hotaru's back.

She is sitting at the head of the table, legs folded beneath her. Her hair is shaved one-third up her forehead, allowing her arrow tattoo, whose blue color has faded with age, to display proudly. Her position and tattoo mark her as a leader. Jinhai wishes one of Kei's memories would present itself to him, so he'd know more about this woman; but, as it's been for a while, his mind is silent.

"Please, take a seat. Eat your fill."

Just like that, conversation floods the room again.

Jinhai and his group take a seat near the middle of the table where five cushions have been left empty. Two little boys (whose heads are indeed shaved but not tattooed) elbow each other and whisper out of the corner of their mouths as they shoot furtive glances at the newcomers. When Jinhai waves at them, mouth quirked in amusement, one of the boys elbows the other even harder one last time before finding great interest in his plate of rice and black beans.

The meal is unlike anything he's ever eaten before. He figures at first glance that the lack of meat would be the biggest shock but it isn't. Something in the spicing and flavoring is earthy and reminds him of summer. Once he accustoms himself to the taste, he clears three plates of rice and vegetable stew and later finds heaven in the fruit pies. (His favorites are peach and cherry.)

Toward the end of the meal, Mela clears her throat. "I must admit that there's something I've been concealing from you, Avatar. Someone arrived at the temple only a day ahead of you and wishes to be formally introduced. I advised her not to come until after the meal in hopes that you might have had time to adjust to your surroundings."

Hotaru bristles at his side like a guard dog. He places a hand on her thigh and squeezes, a silent gesture meant to still the sudden aggression she's taken into her posture. He doesn't blame her. The last few months have been full of unwelcome surprises. But his gut tells him Mela can be trusted. If not for his sake but for her own. She wouldn't invite someone into the temple and put her people at risk when they too had already faced so much adversity.

Mela waves her hand and a young boy with fresh tattoos bows before disappearing around a corner.

Jinhai makes eye contact with the master. She smiles and despite his own reassurances, he can't help the anxiety that snakes through him. Who will the boy bring back? Friend or foe?

He recognises her immediately.

Her black hair is short, cut to her chin, and her frame is short and slight, a misleader to the damage he knew she was capable of doling out. Her forearms are covered by white wrappings that are usually a staple of Water Tribe fashion and his eyes narrow in on her hands. More specifically, the two knuckles he knows can incapacitate a man and temporarily stunt their bending.

 _Sora_. Her name is Sora. By all accounts thus far, a friend.

"Hello, Avatar," she chirps. "You're an incredibly hard person to track, you know."

"You found me," he points out. Hotaru reaches for his hand under the table and weaves her fingers through his. He squeezes.

"I did," she concedes, moving forward. She takes a seat next to Mela at the head of the table. Jinhai can't help but feel like the rest of the diners' nightly entertainment. "But I also graduated at the top of my class at a world renoud military school and was advised by someone with personal experience with an Avatar."

After a moment, he guesses. "Jiro?"

"How did you know?" she asks, smiling like they're sharing an inside joke. "Did Auntie tell you?" She picks up a sweet from a platter in front of her and loops her arm through Mela's like they're old friends. The old master looks amused.

"You look alike," he says simply.

"Unusual. Mostly, people tell me I look like my mother."

"I have no clue what your mother looks like. Only your father." Jinhai shrugs. "And you share the same nose and eyes."

Sora hums. "Fair enough. Father will be pleased to know _someone_ thinks I look like him."

Jinhai clears his throat and looks away from the young Fire Nation girl to look at his travelling companions. Dorjee, who had the most exposure to the girl, looks completely at ease. Sully looks a little hesitant but Jinhai can't say he blames him since his last exposure to a true Fire Nation citizen, not someone like Ahote who hailed from a supposedly extinct tribe, had resulted in his father's death. Ahote doesn't look like he cares one way or another as he's too busy scowling at the boiled spinach around his plate.

"What are you doing here, Sora?" he asks and looks to her. He reaches out his bending, lets it crawl through the rocks below them, until it settles on her pulse.

She swallows. Before, she'd been mirthful in her teasing, excited to meet the Avatar. Now, age crawls into her young face. "My family failed you in your last life, Avatar, and my nation did the world a great wrong. I want to restore honor to my family and my country. In order to do so, I want to serve as your protector, if you'll allow me."

Her pulse remains steady. Truthful. Jinhai bites the inside of his cheek. Then he looks to Hotaru. In a single glance, they share a conversation that says all they need to before he makes a decision.

"I don't see why not," he says and grins. "I only have one condition."

Sora's shoulders sag with relief. She tucks a piece of her hair behind her ear. "Which is?"

"Teach us how to chi-block."

She laughs, her youth flooding her face. "It'd be my pleasure, Avatar."

**IV.**

Before they can retire to their rooms for the night—Jinhai won't be sharing a space with Hotaru for the first time in a long time and it feels _weird_ because they've always slept in close proximity—they all meet back in the room with Aang's statue.

They sit in a circle, thighs pressed into the cool stone floor. Sora joins them this time and takes a spot next to Mela with Suluk on her right.

"I wish I could give you more time to settle in and get your bearings but I'm afraid that we need to talk about the circumstances that brought you here, Jinhai." Straight to the point. Jinhai could deal with that.

"Of course," he murmurs and shifts. The tip of his knee brushes Hotaru's and he draws on it as a source of comfort.

"Sora arrived yesterday. She told me you fled Makapu where you were being trained in firebending. There was a spirit attack. Children were taken. There have been similar attacks all around the Earth Kingdom and various disappearances at the spiritual hotspots around the world dating back to your birth. That was about all she knew on the issue," Mela says and her mouth purses. "Do you have any more possible information that can tell us what kind of threat we're facing?"

"We're not entirely sure... the first time I encountered those dark spirits was outside of Xianghao several months ago. They killed an entire envoy of men and they were a big enough threat to trigger the Avatar State when I'd never so much as brushed on it my entire life. And trust me when I say I've been in plenty of danger before."

"Can you tell me what the spirits looked like? I might be able to have one of the acolytes research it in the library. That might provide some answers as to what has caused them to go rogue. Spirits usually don't get involved in the physical world's affairs unless they've been insulted directly."

He describes the creatures—their black teeth and yellow eyes, the jaded spikes that flowed off their lupine body. When he's done, Mela admits that the description doesn't ring a bell but intends to find out what they are.

"Is there anything else you can tell us?" she asks. The skin around her dove gray eyes feather when she tilts her head to the side. "Even the smallest of details can help us determine what's causing the imbalance so that we can figure out how to defeat it."

Jinhai swallows and his fists clench. There's something on the tip of his tongue, something he wants to tell her. _Needs_ to tell her. _What is it? What is it what is it what is it?_

He glances at Hotaru and his brow wrinkles. She searches his faces. She's always been able to read him like a book. Sometimes, he's not sure where he ends and she begins. Whatever souls are made of, she's the thread that ties and holds his together. This much he knows.

A headache splits behind his eyes as he thinks harder, tries to recall whatever it is he desperately wants to tell Mela, but it's like his tongue has been bound and sworn to silence. He can't contain his wince when the pain intensifies, hitting him like a road spike driven into the space between his eyes.

"Jinhai, do you mind if I speak for you?" Hotaru asks, touching his bicep. When the pain passes, he looks up at her and into those soft green eyes and clenches his jaw. He shakes his head.

"He's been having nightmares since we left the Chen Estate," she says without looking away from him. "And he hasn't had much success meditating into the Spirit World or contacting his past lives. I've seen him try. And before the Chen Estate, the Avatar State was something Jinhai struggled not to tap into at the slightest change in your emotions. I haven't seen him struggle once since then."

He cocks his head and looks at her strangely. _Yes, those are the words. Why can't I say them?_ As the memory unlocks itself as Hotaru voices his thoughts, he remembers he's never told her this. So how does she know?

She finally looks away from him and a blush boils at the tops of her cheeks as she continues talking to Mela. It's hard to focus on much else other than his sudden, raging headache but still warmth flutters in his heart and threatens to stain his own skin pink when he realizes that she watches him as much as he watches her.

 _Sisterly concern,_ he tells himself, his hummingbird heart betraying him. _That's all she feels._ And yet the words don't feel right–don't feel adequate.

Mela hums. "Do you think you simply struggle with the spiritual side of your Avatar duties or is it more?"

Jinhai tries to respond but his tongue is all tangled in his mouth and his throat goes tight.

" _Sifu_ … I don't think he can say," Dorjee says slowly, one eyebrow arched as she watches his mouth open and close like a shored fish. Jinhai points a finger at her, his left eye squeezing shut as another lance of pain races through his eye socket.

"What do you mean he can't say?" Ahote grunts, looming at her where she sits next to him. "Just spit it out, kid."

"Something won't let me," he says, gritting his teeth. "I don't know what it is but it makes it damn near impossible to tell you anything. It _hurts_. Meditating hurts. Where Kei once was in my mind… is empty."

Mela cocks her head. "Interesting," she murmurs. "Spiritual blockages among new Avatars are uncommon but this sounds like something else. Like your spiritual connection has been locked down rather than you have yet to forge one." The master traces the tip of her blue arrow on the back of her hand with her middle finger. "Airbending tends to be the most spiritually-based of all the elements. Perhaps further training and guided meditation will help unravel what has happened to your connection to your past lives."

"Jinhai has yet to waterbend," Suluk offers. "That may be apart of the issue. I can work work him on that and see if that helps with his spiritual progression."

"I agree. Jinhai you can work with Suluk from dawn until midmorning. After that, I'll train you and Dorjee." She turns to the Sun Warrior. "Ahote, do you have any input as his firebending master?"

The warrior grunts. "He's come a long way, but he's far from mastering it. We can work in the evenings. It's better to learn without the sun to rely on anyway." Ahote runs a hand over the sharp point of his jaw. "I am aware of a firebending technique that may be able to sense what is wrong with Jinhai's spiritual connection, though. I've personally never used it. If I could have access to your libraries, I might be able to familiarize myself with it and use it if your methods fail."

"When I ask Yangkey to research the spirits that have been attacking, I'll be sure to tell him that you are to have complete access to our records. If you'd like, you can start on that in the morning."

Ahote grunts again, a silent affirmation and tilts his head in a bow.

"Then it's settled. Jinhai, for the time being, you are to focus on your air and water disciplines. Suluk, you can use the main courtyard with the fountains to teach the Avatar. Residents will be told to avoid the area until you're finished so you should be allowed to train undisturbed. Dorjee, you will begin your training with us tomorrow as well. Ahote, I'll be sure to aid you as must as possible in your research." Mela pauses and looks between Sora and Hotaru. "I can trust I can leave you two to find something to occupy yourselves and not cause trouble at the temple?"

Sora smiles and nudges the master gently in the ribs. "Auntie, when have I have ever caused trouble?"

With a scoff, the old master pushes herself up from the ground. "Sora, you are your father's daughter. Do not mock me."

**V.**

Jinhai is woken roughly the next morning when icy water is thrown in his face. He shoots forward, the remnants of a nightmare still bitter on his tongue, and gasps for air. Jinhai wipes a hand over his face, pushing his damp curls out of his eyes, and squints to see the perpetrator.

"You, my friend, are a hard sonofabitch wake up."

Suluk stands at the side of his bed. He moves his arms in a few quick movements that pulls the water out of Jinhai's bedding and bends it back into a pitcher set off to the side. Birdsong filters through the open window in his room but the sun still hides. Dawn has barely begun to shove aside the darkest parts of the night, still hesitant in its rise.

The young Avatar looks to the two other beds occupied in his room and finds them both empty. Suluk had slept in one—and is obviously accounted for by his shit-eating grin as he towers over Jinhai's pallet—while Ahote took the other but the firebender is nowhere to be seen.

"Where's Ahote?" he asks groggily and wipes the sleep from his eyes. Pushing himself up on his elbows, his blanket falls to his waist to reveal a bare chest.

"Out in the courtyard meditating. Said he wanted to get some sun in before Mela locks him away in the library."

Jinhai grunts and reaches for his shirt. He pulls it over his head in one swift movement.

"I'll never understand how he's such an early riser."

Sully snorts. "For someone who's supposed to be half Fire Nation, you really aren't a morning person. Now get up. You have airbending training with Mela in exactly two hours and we have a lot of ground to cover."

Letting loose a groan, Jinhai stands up and stretches. He's craving another one of those fruit pies from dinner and tells Sully as such as they walk out of the room, shoulder to shoulder.

"You can eat after you're done with me. Think of it this way—today's the hardest part of your day. You've airbended before. Mela's just got to show you how. I've got to figure out how to get you to bend the damn shit to begin with."

Jinhai blows a raspberry. "You're not making me feel any better about this."

**VI.**

His two hours with Suluk pass slower than he would've liked. During that time, the sun fully rises and the temple comes to life. And despite Sully's instance and enthusiasm, he doesn't bend a drop of water.

Jinhai leaves feeling frustrated and angry with himself.

He's always been able to feel the other elements—the earth under his toes, the wind in his hair, the fire in his blood. But water stubbornly remains out of reach. He's never felt the power of the moon the same way he's felt the sun charging his firebending. Maybe he won't be able to connect with the moon until he actually waterbends. Or maybe he's just a shitty Avatar. He's got money on both options.

Suluk walks with him to the kitchens to get breakfast before he begins his training with Mela and Dorjee. When they get there, they wait for the two women and make small talk. It's the first time that they've really been able to sit and get to know each other. So far, Jinhai thinks that he and Sully could be great friends. They've definitely got more in common than he does with Ahote. Sully is an easy-going guy. Ahote? Not so much. The only one who seems to be able to draw him out of his brooding is Dorjee. (It's obvious he's got a soft spot for the airbender. How that is, Jinhai isn't sure since Ahote seems to take the brunt of Dorjee's barbed tongue when she's feeling particularly lively.)

Jinhai can tell Sully is still very worried about his missing sister. He understands. If it were Hotaru who'd gone missing, he would've gone out of his mind with worry.

Clearing his throat, Jinhai sets the remnants of his pastry on the counter. "I want you to know," he begins, "I'm going to do everything in my power to find out where your sister was taken and bring her back."

Sully inhales a shaky breath and his grip on the back of a chair tightens; his knuckles, flecked with silver scars much like his own that stand out amongst an expanse of smooth, brown skin, turn white. "I know," he says quietly. "That's why I came with you."

Jinhai's fingers tap a nervous pattern against the countertop. He's trying to find the right words but dammit if it isn't hard. He's good with easy words, sweet nothings, the sort of things you tell lovers after a night of fun or to con a man out of his watch on the street. He's terrible at being good at the things that matter.

"I know that you've faced a lot of trouble as the Avatar. I know you didn't ask for it and you led a completely different lifestyle before you found out, but I want you to know that you've done a better job at stepping up than most people could ever dream of. That's why I followed you here. If I'm being honest, it's about more than just my sister. You're the type of person I could see myself believing in and I want to help you."

The Avatar sighs, his shoulders moving with the effort. "I'm glad you think so. I know that the world has really moved on from the idea of having an Avatar and if it weren't for this whole spiritual threat, I think they could do fine without one. I think if I wanted to, after I've handled whatever this imbalance is, I could vanish and go away and never have to think twice about being the Avatar again. The world would keep spinning. Time would go on. And I think at first I would've done that in a heartbeat.

"But I've seen things that I can't let go and I have the power to change them. I always wanted to make a difference but never felt like I could because my influence was too small. I always thought _maybe in another lifetime_ , you know? But somehow against all odds, I've been given this incredible power and I'm going to use it to make things better. I know Dorjee isn't the only airbender whose been trafficked and abused and I know first hand how bad the organized crime issue has gotten in the Earth Kingdom." Jinhai runs a hand through his hair and frowns. "I have no idea what my life is going to look like a year or even a month from now. I just know that I've been given this lifetime— _me_ , not Kei or Aang or whoever will take my place when I'm gone—to do a lot of good in this world. I don't want to waste it."

Sully claps a hand on Jinhai's shoulder and pulls him in for a hug. Jinhai pats the other man on the back awkwardly as the waterbender holds him tight. How long has it been since he's hugged someone other than Hotaru? How long has it been since he touched another _man_? Jinhai clears his throat and resists the urge to blush as he becomes acutely aware of all of the hard planes and dips in Sully's body carved there by years of waterbending as he hugs him.

Behind him, a woman clears his throat. Jinhai jumps away as if he's been caught doing something he shouldn't have but Sully simply hooks an arm around the Avatar's shoulders and grins.

"Well, hello there, Dorjee darling."

The airbender narrows her eyes and scowls. Someone has provided her with traditional Air Nomad clothing; her brown peasant trousers are tucked into a set of leather moccasins that lace up her calves and a red sash lays over an peachy tunic. Her black hair is pulled back and tied loosely towards the ends in a style he's seen many of the women at the temple wear. She's never looked like she belonged somewhere more.

"Mela's waiting," she says, mouth still pursed in mock irritation. "If you two are done eating everything in sight, I'd like to get a move on with my first day of lessons."

Jinhai laughs and shrugs off Sully's arm only to walk over to Dorjee and loop his arm through hers. Using his free hand, he ruffles her hair and her scowl only deepens. "Yes, because I'm _so_ excited to see you outperform me," he says but begins to follow her towards the training yards anyway. He waves over his shoulder at Sully, a good-bye for the day.

Dorjee makes another face. "Literally, shut up. You learned what I taught you in like ten minutes and then made up your own bending forms. Also, you're the Avatar. So seriously. Shut up."

He laughs and shrugs. "Yeah, but it wasn't really airbending. More like bending air like it was earth. Not nearly as effective. You, though, madame, have the skill. The technique. The _audacity_." He kisses the air. "I could never."

"You're a drama queen," she states. "And I hate you." Dorjee does not take her arm out of his.

**VII.**

"What _is_ this?" he hisses, crossing his arms over his chest and shuffling his feet.

Before him, doors are positioned on a circular, marble platform. Only a few moments ago, Mela had sent them spinning with an airblast from her palms and now they're whirling at a speed that blurs the world around them.

"It's an ancient training exercise we use to teach young children the circular and spiral movements essential to airbending," says Mela, lacing her fingers together. She rests them on her stomach, just below her breasts, and taps her to pointer fingers together in a contemplative gesture. "I taught Kei without them but she'd been bending air since birth and we had neither the time nor resources to train her the way I would've liked. Her technique suffered and as such she was put at a disadvantage when she fought Azulon. If you want to learn, you learn properly and you will use them, Avatar."

Jinhai grumbles low in his throat. Suluk had already spent the better part of the morning barking orders at him as Jinhai stared uselessly at the fountain in the main courtyard. Now, Mela was standing firm on his use of what looked to be a death trap on hinges and screws.

At least there was silence when he trained with Ahote. The Sun Warrior simply nodded his head when he approved and shook it when he didn't like something or corrected his form when it desperately needed it.

Dorjee looks on at the moving doors with wonder. Jinhai is not as easily impressed. It looks like a whole lot of unnecessary bruises and cuts just waiting to happen. True, he'd faced worse in Yao's ring but he has no intention of feeling like he's been beaten within an inch of his life with none of the adrenaline or rush an actual fight provided.

"The goal," Mela continues, "is to make it to the other side of the platform without touching the doors."

A pause—then a sigh of resignation. "Will you at least demonstrate what it's supposed to look like before I get knocked on my ass?" he asks. Jinhai cocks his head and looks at the doors again, as if looking at them sideways will reveal the way he can get through them unscathed. No such luck.

Mela pushes a piece of graying hair out of her face. "Fair enough. Observe."

The airbending master approaches the doors, which had begun to slow, and quickens their pace with another gust of air. Jinhai glances at his friend from the corner of his eye as the master steps into the maze of spinning gates. Dorjee leans forward, perched on the tips of her toes, her focus fixed wholly on her teacher. Her mouth teeters on the edge of a smile.

Jinhai can't help himself. He smiles too.

Mela's robes flutter in and out of sight as she bobs and weaves through the training course. Her arms swirl above and below her, following the flow of the air currents as she twists and turns to adjust to their direction.

When she makes it to the other side, she waits for the doors to slow before she calls out, "Alright. One of you go through now." And then the gates are spinning again.

"You or me?" Jinhai asks.

"I'll go," Dorjee says.

The young girl steps up to the gates and raises her arms in front of her, her palms facing away from her the way she'd seen Mela do. She puts one foot forward, the leather sole sliding against the stone floor. Those violet eyes flare and the wind blows her hair back to reveal her face, which is pinched with emotion. Determination, anger, grief, and relief. She blows out a breath.

Then disappears into the gates.

**VIII.**

There's a brief moment of panic, a tightening of her heart, when Dorjee feels a shift in the wind and she's forced to take action. Her feet shift, her shoulders torquing, and with a sharp intake, she dodges the first gate.

Another gate knicks her shoulder and nearly sends her sprawling. Dorjee rights herself, spins, and successfully shifts around a third door.

It feels like she spends a lifetime in the gates but knows only a matter of seconds has passed when she emerges on the other side. Her shoulder twinges where the gate smacked her but the pain is dwarfed by the sense of accomplishment and belonging that blooms in her chest when Mela praises her.

"That was excellent," she says. "I'd have thought you'd grown up around this if I didn't know any better."

Dorjee stutters and her cheeks and chest flush with heat at the master's approval. She looks down at her shoes and rubs the back of her neck. "I don't know. One of the gates hit me. I'm sure Jinhai can do a lot better."

"I wouldn't be so sure of that," Mela says with a snort. "Look."

And Dorjee does. Jinhai had entered the gates but was having a rough time of it. She can hear his grunts and curses as he's bounced from door to door like a rag doll. She can't help her grin. _I'm better than him,_ she thinks and immediately feels guilty.

"There have been others like you that have come to the temple, others who were separated from us after the war or were taken from their families before they could reach us," the teacher says as they watch and wait for Jinhai to finish. "There were some who didn't even know that they were airbenders until much later in life, not unlike Jinhai's own late discovery. And there's one thing that's held true for all of them when I trained them."

"Which is?" she asks quietly and fiddles with her fingers.

"It's true that it's harder to learn bending later in life, no matter the element or disciple. You have to teach the body to move in a way it's never had to. But when my students earned their tattoos, they valued them so much more. They knew what it was like to work for something. And they were always among my most talented students."

The gates spit Jinhai out and he lands hard on his backside.

Dorjee can't help the snort of laughter that escapes her. Jinhai glares at her from over his shoulder, his nose wrinkling.

"I'm glad someone thinks this is funny," he says.

"Again," Mela replies.

Jinhai swears under his breath but gets up regardless and slips back inside the doors when they pick up speed again.

"You truly did a good job. Perhaps when the Avatar is busy with his other studies, I can give you private lessons."

Emotion grows thick in her throat and she swallows in an attempt to wash it away. "I couldn't possibly… I'm sure you've got better things to do with your time."

"Not at all, Dorjee. I'd love to spend time training you and getting to know you. There aren't very many of us and we take care of our own. You're apart of our family now."

**IX.**

"I know that Mela and your father met because of Kei but why do you call her Auntie?"

Sora shrugs but doesn't look up from her hands which are making quick work of weaving rope into a net. Per the airbending master's request, the two of them have looked for ways to occupy their time while everyone else tackles Jinhai's training. Hotaru has taken to sewing again, something she's actually missed doing since leaving Xianghao. She's not sure what Sora has determined an adequate use of her time, aside from perhaps brushing up on her knot tying skills, but she's been at it like a mad woman for several days.

"The way my father tells it, he wasn't in a good spot after Kei died and the war ended. He'd spent some time in one of the Fire Nation's prisons which weren't exactly known for their benevolence and he blamed himself for Kei's death. He'd thought he'd distracted her from the archers and gotten her killed in the Avatar State."

"The Yuyan, right? Jinhai used to have nightmares about them as a kid."

"Yeah, them. Nasty fuckers but you've got to at least admire their skill. The republic had them and the rest of the Fire Nation's military disbanded but I don't think they ever really did, not all the way. Father sometimes talks about bandits here on the continent who've got an aim truer than true north and it's hard to not think of them when they make a shot in tornado condition winds from three quarters of a mile away." Sora pauses to tie a loose end at the edge of her net, her fingers moving too quickly for Hotaru to follow. "There aren't very many people who understood what it was like to know Kei. Like _really_ know her. Most people think of her as this bloodthirsty-albeit-effective, iron-fisted ruler. That's not how my father remembers her. The few times he's told me about her, he says she was head-strong and stubborn, sure, but she felt things with her whole heart and she cared about people. A lot. Azulon slaughtering her people destroyed her. After the war, he connected with her teachers—Bumi, Himiko, Takashi, and Mela. They all kept in touch and helped each other process the survivor's guilt. It wasn't easy watching an eighteen-year-old girl die like that, die _for_ you.

"My father decided to take up a major role in rebuilding and managing the Fire Nation as a way to make amends for his failure to Kei. By the time I was born, he didn't have much time for me or my mother for that matter. It was around that time that a group of loyalists made a serious attempt to kidnap the living heirs and brainwash them with their ideas of world domination and racism. They failed, of course, but like I said. It took a lot of effort on my father's part to make sure that that first attempt and every attempt after it remained a failure. When my father got worried that our lives were endangered by staying in the Fire Nation, we came here to stay at the air temple where loyalists couldn't hold our lives over my father. Dad helped the Fire Nation. Mama and I helped the Air Nomads rebuild. Mela helped raised me. So I call her Auntie."

Hotaru bites the inside of her cheek. "That sounds hard."

Sora shakes her head but there's no heart behind it. "It wasn't too bad," she says. "He visited when he could but I understood there was a lot more at stake and that it was for my own safety. By the time I was ten, things had settled down enough in the Fire Nation that Mama and I were able to go home if we wanted to. Mama did, but by that time I was old enough to go to the Northern Water Tribe's Naval Academy. So I went there. My time here gave an upper edge among my classmates, who were all extremely talented waterbenders from legendary lines. I even went to school with a guy who claimed Avatar Kuruk was his four-greats uncle. I'm not a bender and it certainly doesn't make me any less than someone who _can_ bend but I certainly have to find ways to keep up with your natural gifts. The acrobatics that a long-term life here requires along with the chi-blocking my father taught me did the trick. When I graduated, Mela came to my graduation. We send each other letters occasionally. She's always hounding me to visit." A cheeky grin. "I suppose I can thank you guys for giving me an excuse to stay away longer in the future."

"It still sounds hard. Raising yourself isn't easy. Especially when you have a face to imagine when you know someone should be there to take care of you." Hotaru rubs her forehead and blows out a sigh. "I didn't always live at the orphanage. I wasn't like Jinhai in the sense that Mama Lu's was all I'd ever known. I had a family before and they gave me up when they realized how much trouble my seizures and bending caused. And they were pretty well-off which makes their reasoning for giving me up a whole lot weaker given they could've easily afford the doctors and the teachers. It's not something I like to talk about, even with Jinhai, because I know how angry he'd get knowing they gave me up over my condition but I just… I don't know. I wanted you to know I understand."

Sora pauses her work on her net and looks up. Her amber eyes simmer, boiling with the intensity of her emotions. Something Hotaru is beginning to understand about the other girl is that her eyes tend to give her away; they're intense, unyielding, a gateway that betrays her even when the rest of her body is as still as stone. They remind her a bit of Jinhai—whose eyes have _always_ stripped away her defenses—and she wonders if its simply a Fire Nation thing.

"Thank you," she says and Hotaru fidgets under the sincere weight of her words. "For sharing. And also accepting me into the group as easily as you have. Trust isn't something one comes by easily these days and I'm glad you've allowed me the chance to earn."

"You're welcome."

Sora grunts and nods her head before going back to her net, which is only a few knots of being completed. A few minutes later, when Hotaru finishes sewing on the sleeve of her shirt, Sora slaps her thighs and stands quickly.

"Come on," she says and doesn't wait before marching out of the quiet little bedroom.

Hotaru arches an eyebrow before standing as well, her sewing tucked under her arm. Despite the heavy net in her arms that nearly blocks her view, Sora walks with purpose and knowledge.

"Where are we going?" she calls out, quicking her pace to a jog to keep up with the other girl.

"Training grounds," she says. "My intel told me you can't bend worth shit. I'm going to teach you a few things so you can defend yourself."

"Jinhai's taught me a few things. I've gotten better. I can bend if I really focus. And Jinhai says I can bend a lot more than most people."

"Most benders have been doing this since before they could walk. They're as attuned to their element as they are their own heartbeat. Even the airbender girl you came here with connects with the air without realizing it and she's got zero training. The seconds it takes you to focus in on the earth are seconds you still need to be able to defend yourself."

Hotaru catches up to Sora before she slows to a brisk walk. That burn has returned to her eyes and Hotaru knows better than to challenge it further.

"So what's the net for then?"

Sora stops walking. She's led them to an airball court, where so many tall totem-poles rise out of the ground like branchless trees.

"In case you fall," she says and grins. "We're doing this in the air, sunshine."

**X.**

Later that night, they all bundle around a fire deep in the temple. They've set aside this time to bond and laugh despite the rigorous demands of their schedules in the temple.

Dorjee, Jinhai, and even Hotaru groan over the budding bruises that training brings. (Sully offers to heal them with his waterbending but only Jinhai takes him up on the offer. The two women seem to take pride in the ache of their muscles and even the tell-tale signs of failure in the color purple, green, and midnight blue.)

Jinhai regalls them with tales of his failures in the spinning gates and Dorjee sits a little straighter when she adds quietly (and proudly) that she's become quite adept at two of the five forms Mela has taught her.

The first time she mentioned her accomplishments she'd been afraid they'd be met with ridicule. That Jinhai, Suluk, _Ahote_ , would glare at her and tell her they were nothing in the face of their male prowess.

"Those gates are hell. Stupid. I hate them." Jinhai grumbles and slouches, shoveling an irate spoonful of sticky rice into his mouth. "What did you think of them Dorjee? I haven't seen you there when I go."

She'd stuttered over her words, toyed with her fingers, bit her cheek so hard that she drew blood, and kept her gaze nailed into her lap when she said, "I… I already mastered them. Mela is teaching me other stuff now."

Silence follows her words and she waits. _Spirits_ , she waits for the sting of Jinhai's response as he cuts her down. Maybe even the sting of his hand on her cheek.

(She knows, of course, in her heart of hearts that he would never, _could_ never, touch her like that. But the fear is there, always hovering over her shoulder. She and Mela have begun talking about it, her time at the Chens. When she told the older woman she's never felt anger like this before, that sometimes she's incapable of leashing her tongue when it bubbles out of her at the strangest of times, she only says that it's normal. To be expected. That she is allowed to be angry. She's also allowed to be sad or happy or scared and she's even allowed to miss them, if only she remembers that what they did to her was never, ever okay. That it was never her fault. Not once. And somehow, though the anger still comes and goes, to be told she is allowed to feel what she wants, to be validated, is enough to subside the angry, red creature that lurks under her skin.)

When the tension eases from her body and Dorjee gathers the strength to look up, somehow the first person she looks to is Ahote. The black paint is fresh around his eyes today and it only does favors for the gold color of his eyes. He doesn't smile to reassure her but he does tilt his head, the barest of gestures that she wouldn't have seen if she hadn't been watching, and her chest warms.

The moment is shattered when Jinhai lets out an indignant cry. "I told you! I told you that you'd do great." His chest puffs up and the gesture reminds her so much of Ahn that she tenses all over again. "Ladies and gentlemen, I demand a round of applause for Dorjee. She's earned it. Sweetheart, you're going to look great in blue."

**XI.**

"Where are we going, _sifu_ , if you don't mind me asking?" asks Dorjee as she trails several steps behind the older woman.

Mela clicks her tongue and responds without turning her head. Her voice echoes through the hall, mingling with the yowls of the flying lemurs above.

"You'll see," she says and continues on.

The master leads them through a maze of stone hallways and restored marble arches towards the far west side of the mountain side. There are more animals here and the summery smell of hay and the crisp scent of apples becomes impossible to ignore.

When they step through one final great arch, Dorjee is presented with open stalls and small balls of fur.

"Sky bison," she whispers. Her body tightens with excitement. Yangkey's bison was the first bison she'd ever seen and she'd been _so_ excited. The babies, with their stubby horns and big brown eyes, are even better. Dorjee crouches and wiggles her fingers at one stumbling across the floor. Its nostrils flare and slowly it begins to shuffle towards her. Dorjee bites her lip to stop her smile.

"When an airbender turns eight years old, they are paired with a sky bison as their life long companion. The bison chooses its rider, never the other way around, and if their rider dies the bison returns to the wild. Come. There's someone I want you to meet in particular."

Reluctantly, Dorjee leaves the calf behind and trails behind Mela. They pass several large stalls where baby bison are nestled together. Their doors are never closed, though; the babies are free to come and go as they please. Dorjee violently smothers a cry of glee when she sees one of them hover in the air for a moment, its mouth pulled into a happy 'O', before falling back onto its belly, its six legs starfished out.

Finally, they come to a stop at a stall towards the back. None of the children are back here. Only an older bison, nearly fully grown. Its large head is laid on its front set of feet. Dorjee's heart constricts. It looks so… _sad_.

"This is Yeshe," says Mela. The affection in her voice is clear. "She was born several years ago in the spring. Lively girl. She was the first one to fly in her litter. As I told you, the bison always chooses its rider. When the time came for us to introduce the calves to the children, she never formed a bond. We've tried each year since then but she still hasn't taken a liking to anyone."

Dorjee frowns and shuffles forward until she's shoulder-to-shoulder with Mela. "That's so sad."

Mela smiles at her, a small secretive thing that brings out a dimple above one corner of her mouth. "Oh, I don't know. I think she'll eventually choose a companion. She's a special animal. It'll take a special rider to connect with her." She pulls an apple out of her wide-mouthed sleeve and offers it to Dorjee. _How long has that been in there?_ "Here. Take this. She's partial to the green ones but I'm afraid La La used the majority of them to make pies last week."

Taking the fruit, she approaches the bison. Yeshe lifts her head and sniffs the air. A low rumble echoes out from her chest and Dorjee pauses for a moment, determining whether it was a threatening growl or simply an acknowledgement. When Mela urges her forward with a few words of encouragement, Dorjee kneels in front of Yeshe and holds out her palm, the apple in her grasp.

Yeshe stretches out her neck. She's still scenting her, still trying to determine what this stranger's scent means.

Quicker than she would've thought capable, Yeshe scoops the treat out of Dorjee's palm with her large pink tongue and devours it in seconds.

Dorjee leans in further, daring to sink her fingers into the white fur that smells like sunshine and rain, and smiles when the bison lets her. Yeshe is so soft and so warm and as she meets the bison's stare, her fingers still running through her outer coat, something _clicks_ inside her.

Yeshe's tongue peaks out again. This time, she licks the side of Dorjee's face, smearing loose hairs upward, and the young girl falls back onto her rear. The bison surges forward. Dorjee can't contain her giggles as the animal stands over her, rubbing her face all over Dorjee's own face and chest and licking her the way a mother cat might groom her child.

"Ye- _she_!" she cries, her voice hitching with laughter. "Calm down, girl!"

Mela chuckles above her and only shrugs when Dorjee looks to her pleadingly. Slowly, the bison calms herself and, when she's finally finished scent-marking the girl, curls herself around Dorjee on the floor.

Dorjee scratches Yeshe behind the ear. Her face hurts. She hasn't smiled this much in a long time.

Swallowing, she looks to Mela. "She's… is she mine now? Right?" Her voice sounds so small. She can't imagine leaving Yeshe behind in the stables, alone.

Mela smiles that same secretive smile. "Mmmm," she says. "A special rider for a special bison."

**XII.**

Yeshe leaves the stalls with Dorjee and doesn't leave her side, not for one minute. It's not uncommon for a rider and their bison to remain so closely attached in the weeks after the bond is made, but under usual circumstances the calves are still fairly small and weave through the temple hallways with ease. Yeshe takes up most of the hallway as she follows closely behind her rider, but not a single word is said against the animal or her rider.

The temple is just happy Yeshe has finally found her other half.

(While there isn't much knowledge on _why_ or _how_ airbenders forge such strong connections with sky bison, the nomads know one thing is for sure: it is not entirely of this world. It is in part forged by a magic that neither science nor spiritually can entirely explain, unbreakable until death and likely even after.)

When Dorjee arrives at dinner late, her cheeks still aching with the strain of her smile, and takes a seat at the table, Jinhai turns to her and raises an eyebrow.

Dorjee shrugs. "Her name is Yeshe. She's mine now," she says and Ahote ducks his head to hide a (real) smile.

**XIII.**

Ahote isn't fond of the library at the air temple. Cut deep in the mountain side, the light provided to search the shelves with comes in the form of glowworms. (And, despite Mela's clear instructions, his own bending, which he keeps tightly reigned in his palm.) In the library, he's removed from the sun and it's an absence he feels with his whole body. But he's needed and he's never been the type of man who put his own needs before the people he cares for.

So the sun can wait. He's got reading to do.

He spends nearly three weeks combing the shelves, studying more bending scrolls than he can remember and hunting for tomes from either the Fire Sages or his own people. The bending scrolls are mostly instructions on combative forms—not surprising given that firebending is typically an offensive discipline and he's looking for a rare healing technique he's admittedly only heard stories about—and the books he's found on the Sages have mostly revolved around their traditional role in training the Avatar or the spiritual epicenters that the temples are built on.

There is only one book about his home, his _people_ , and the words paint them a relic of the old world, a time in history that has long since passed. Which, he supposed, was of their own doing and he was glad that Ran and Shaw and the Eternal Fire were their own secret. If Sozin and Azulon had known of their existence twenty years ago, he had the feeling that much like the Foggy Swamp Tribe, they would have truly been wiped from existence. His heart twists in its cage when he looks at a crude illustration of the network of temples he calls home. It's a poor substitute for the real thing, but still renews that bone-deep feeling of longing.

He's so terribly homesick, has been ever since his father died and his uncle forced him into hiding, even if he'll never admit it to anyone but himself.

Ahote ignores the roiling feeling in his gut and runs a hand through his hair, which is cut short on the side and grown long on top. He scowls, irritated with himself. He doesn't have _time_ to linger on feeling _sorry_ for himself. The kid—he calls him the kid when they're really only a few months apart in age—needs his help and while he'd started out a major pain in his ass and a means to an end, he's got to admit he's grown on him— _like fucking fungi_.

Somewhere else in the bowels of the cavernous room, he can hear the soft _plunk!_ of books being put back in place. Likely Yangkey. It seems these days Yangkey is the only human being he gets any contact with. He only sees the others at night for dinner and if he's lucky he runs into Suluk and Jinhai when he's done with his morning meditation in the sun and they're finishing up another (unsuccessful) training regimine. On days where Karma is especially kind, he catches Dorjee on her way to collect that horrible animal of hers, Yeshe.

Those interactions were ones he looked forward to and hated with equal measure. Looked forward to because without fail she smiled, radiant like a midday sun, and said, _Good morning, Ahote._ Hated because his tongue always got all tied up and all he could ever say was, _Hello_.

Stupid. That's what he is. Especially knowing what he now knows about her time with Ju Long Chen and his little bastard of a son, Ahn. She needed time to heal. He knew all too well how damaging that kind of thing was to the body, mind and soul. His uncle dethroning him and banishing him from his tribe had been the climax in a long story of humiliation and punishment. It'd taken him years not to flinch at the sight of a raised hand and in part was a large reason why he'd allowed himself to stay in isolation at Makapu.

Ahote was stupid. Stupid for being so damn soft for a girl he barely knew. Stupid for agreeing to teach Jinhai and getting dragged into a mess of cosmic proportions. Stupid for thinking he could be the one who cured Jinhai's severance.

He flipped the page of the book he was studying, his eyesight bleary, and huffed.

"Idiot," he muttered, eyes still scanning the page. "Should've never answered the damn door."

_— parallel to the healing technique used by the Water Tribes, some firebenders are capable of using fire to sense chi paths and interpret spiritual energy—_

Ahote grumbled again. Then paused.

Rereading the paragraph, he scanned the page and flipped the book open to a different chapter, this one focused on healing techniques throughout the elements. There was mention of an airbending technique that used the breath in the body to encourage healing, particularly after a long fast that left the person's body in a nasty state of deterioration. Apparently, there were also ways to correct a broken bone with earthbending. Ahote continued scanning, murmuring the words under his breath.

And there it was, painted in thick black characters that screamed up at him from the page.

 **ENERGY READING —** _**the firebender's ability to heal**_

Ahote sat back in his chair and rubbed at the stubble forming on his jaw. There was no doubt in his mind that this was what he'd heard elders speaking of in the tribe when they spoke of a way to use fire to sense spiritual energy.

He read further, studying the diagram to the side, and memorized the instructions that detailed how he was to use his own chi to sense the infliction.

When he was sure he had it right, he snapped the book shut and left the library.

**XIV.**

"Avatar."

Jinhai turns to face the source of the voice. It's Ahote who, in all his brooding glory, has just interrupted his airbending lesson with Mela. They were just beginning to make headway on his form too.

"It's not time to train with you yet," he says and frowns. "The sun hasn't even started setting yet. What are you doing here?"

"I finally found something in the library. If it works, I'll be able to tell you what's wrong with you and then we can discuss how you should train further."

Mela nods her head. "I'm glad you've made progress." She shoots Jinhai a reprimanding glare. He has the decency to look sheepish when she says, "Jinhai has found meditation to be a _weakness_ of his. Whether that's the severance or his own lack of discipline is yet to be determined."

"Where do we need to go?"

Ahote shrugs. "Here is fine. Just laydown. I'm going to use firebending to searching your chi paths."

Jinhai unfurls his legs from his lotus meditation position and lays his back on the cool marble. He fidgets a little, feeling awkward as Ahote kneels beside his person.

"Close your eyes," the Sun Warrior says.

Jinhai makes a face at Mela over Ahote's shoulder. The warrior only scowls.

Chuckling, Jinhai lets his eyelids flutter shut and listens to the world around him. The chirp of birds in the afternoon. The tinkling sound of water as it flows into a nearby pool.

Jinhai feels the fire spreading across his body, but it doesn't burn. Not at all. It's like basking in the sun and falling asleep. He sinks, slowly, into his body and through the floor below him until he's sure that he's neither here nor there.

_His past lives have blocked him. Cut him off. They won't reach him halfway. He needs to find the connection and pull himself across._

Wherever Ahote has taken him, there's only darkness and a single glowing, golden thread. It crackles with energy, sparking with life and something _other_.

Jinhai reaches for it.

His hand wraps around it—

And then he's

falling,

falling,

 _fallen_.

**XV.**

Jinhai opens his eyes to a sea of violet and turquoise, a bottomless, fathomless night. His mind is hazy, fuzzy, like he's just woken from the deepest of sleeps.

 _Where am I?_ he wonders. _Who am I?_

 _You are the Avatar._ A woman's voice, loud and strong and clear. You _must bring balance to the world. Let me show you._

A flash of light.

And he's remembering a time from long, long ago when the winds howled and he is born again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> a list of team avatar earth edition and their cinnamon roll status // bc why tf not  
> \- jinhai and dorjee look like a cinnamon rolls but could actually kill u  
> \- hotaru and suluk are a cinnamon rolls that are actually cinnamon rolls  
> \- sora looks like she could kill u but is actually a cinnamon roll  
> \- ahote looks like he could kill u and actually will kill u (unless ur name is dorjee)
> 
> stay tuned for next week, lovely human beings. we've got 9k words mf lore to cover!
> 
> ———
> 
> NEXT: seven | the dark spirit


	8. 7 | the dark spirit

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> IT’S WEDNESDAY MY DUDES so buckle tf in we got a wild ride ahead of us
> 
> i estimate 3-4 more chapters in book three so shit's about to happen. also, this chapter is like... a little graphic? idk. process a caution. it’s not that bad imo but i’ll disclaim it here. this chapter is 9k words and with it, we are nigh on the 100k mark so yeehaw!

**CHAPTER SEVEN  
_the dark spirit_**

**I.**

The tundra winds are unforgiving as the first blizzard of the season rolls in from the sea. It’s the kind of storm that songs are written about, a pure force of nature that howls and rips at the landscape and buries them deep beneath the snow.

Not even the tribe’s strongest benders dare venture into the storm. The wise ones prepared days ago. They stocked driftwood and blubber in their homes and packed the outer-walls with an extra layer of snow. 

On the fourth night of this great and terrible storm, a baby girl is born. She is beautiful. Her hair is black like a moonless sky and her eyes shine a pale blue like ice in the sun. 

When she cries for the first time, thunder cracks loud above them. Snow from the roof of their igloo shakes loose and peppers their hair and the furs covering the floor. The baby wails and the storm rages. When she is finally soothed to sleep, pressed against her mother’s breast, the wind ceases its howl.

Her mother and father name her Aumanil after the sea.

“I hope she’s not as much trouble as this storm has been,” her father says and presses a kiss to his wife’s forehead.

“Oh, she more than likely will be,” her mother replies fondly and scratches her finger under the baby’s chin. Even after the difficulties of childbirth, she still glows with happiness. “The best of them always are.”

She grows up playing alongside the wolf pups her father breeds for sleds. The tribe sometimes thinks that this is where she gets her wildness from; she spends so much time among wolves that she forgets what it is to be a human girl. One summer, she takes an interest in one of her father’s runts. There had been runts before it just as there would be many after it, but there is something about this one that refuses to let her go. 

She demands her father let her keep this one. 

“If I can make it live, he’s mine,” she says, unbendable, unbreakable. 

And because her father cannot say no to his storm child, he allows it. She nurses the wolf through his infancy with the pure strength of her will and names him Tikaani—meaning _warrior wolf_ in their native tongue. 

She is four when the twins, Sesi and Miki, are born and seven when her sister Kurozuka comes into the world. Being the eldest child is a strange adjustment but one she takes to quickly. She’d vowed to protect Tikaani to her dying breath; she could do the same for the humans of her own flesh and blood. 

Luckily, there is no need for her to test her vow of protection in her youth. Their village is prosperous, full of love and life. The Avatar before her birth—an airbender male named Sonam who was wise and stern—reigned over a long era of stability before passing in his sleep some time ago. He’d left them this peace, a world where Aumanil was free to run barefoot in the summer months and play in the snow with her pet wolf in the winter. 

Without raiders or pirates to fear, the tribe hunts arctic seals and walrus whales when the ice melts and the days are impossibly long. When the weather harshens, they follow the caribou where they must during the winter. The tribe grows under such peaceful conditions. Children are born and the elders grow old and wrinkled. (Aumanil grows up listening to their stories of what the world was like a long, long time ago. There’s mystical stories of dragons and sea serpents, of Avatars smiting down great evils and terrible monsters. Aumanil listens to each story, catches herself opening her mouth to say, _I remember_.) With so many people making the move between camps difficult, there’s talk of making a permanent residence on the coast closest to the continent where they can establish trade with the Earth States nearby. 

The tribe, as it always does, celebrates when Aumanil discovers she’s a waterbender; it’s a gift, bestowed from the Moon and the Ocean, a sign that they’ve gained favor among the spirits. The elders say that the spirits have granted them more waterbenders in the passing years than they have in a long time, yet another sign of their prosperity.

“Tui and La have bestowed you with a great responsibility,” the sage says during the celebration. He draws a crescent moon on Aumanil’s forehead with crushed ash from the large, burning fire. “May you use your gift to guide the tribe and bring peace and balance wherever you go.”

Her parents thank Tui and La for the gift bestowed on their daughter. The women in their lineage have always been known for their blessing, but their mother claims it is a gift that must be earned. 

“Long before you were born, our tribe faced a time of great suffering,” her mother began. She’d told them this story many times and each time her daughters listened closely, dreaming of the day that they too would be blessed by the spirits. Sesi and Miki are tucked into her mother’s side while Aumanil holds Kurozuka in her lap. “There was a war and many of our men left the tribe in order to fight the coming threat. With many of our warriors and hunters gone, our people starved. One of our ancestors prayed to Tui and La for the gift to move oceans so that she might feed her people while the men were gone. The spirits granted her wish but warned her that the daughters of her lineage would only be blessed with the same power if they were pure of heart. The gift could only be used to bring balance and peace. If the gift was not granted, the daughter was said to be of a black heart. There was a chance she would use her gift to bring great harm and destruction to the tribe.” 

“Grandma couldn’t bend, Mama. Was she black of heart? Was she evil?” Miki whispers with wide eyes, squirming the way excited children do.

Their mother laughs. “Only when she was angry. No, daughter. It’s just a story. Our family is blessed with a wonderful gift and it is true that we must always use it to help others, but it does not determine the color of your heart. Your grandma was a wonderful woman who did much good for this tribe.”

Years pass. Sesi and Miki discover their bending and the tribe celebrates them, too. With three daughters of the legendary line, the elders praise the spirits for the protection provided for them.

Anxiously, they wait for the fourth sister to announce her gift. 

Kurozuka never bends.

**II.**

Jinhai inhales like he’s breathing his first breath. When he opens his eyes again, he’s back in that endless sea, staring at a reflection of himself. His reflection glows violet and his eyes are closed, like he’s still drifting somewhere far, far away. His shadow-self looks so relaxed, so at peace.

 _She was our family,_ a voice says. _She was good and kind at one point. There was nothing she wouldn’t have done for us. And none of us cared that she couldn’t bend. It was just a story our mothers told us to keep us obedient._

Jinhai blinks with slow, lazy eyes— _him_ , not his reflection—and watches as his shadow-self changes. It starts as a ripple, like a stone cast into water, and before he knows it he’s staring at a completely different version of himself.

This version is older and female, built with harsh features and planes that converge like the slopes of a craggy mountain against the sky. _A past life._

“Who are you?” he asks, and his voice echoes as if it is trying to fill the deepest cave. 

_My name is Aumanil. I was the Avatar long before you._

“Why are you showing me this? Why you when… when you’ve been gone for so long?”

_I allowed my emotions to rule me. I did not fulfill my duty as Avatar the way I was supposed to. If you are to choose a different path, the right path, you must know where she came from._

“Is your sister the one controlling the dark spirits? Is she responsible for the kidnappings?” Jinhai can’t stop the desperate edge from entering his voice.

There’s been so much confusion, so much suffering. For once, he just wants to know the answer. He’s tired of living on a leap of faith.

Aumanil’s form ripples again. Jinhai opens his mouth to protest. _Come back. Please, come back._

He’s forced into another memory before he can get the words out. 

**III.**

Aumanil discovers her destiny when she’s sixteen years old. Sonam’s peace sours and the pirates return. When they try to take her sisters, to rape her mother, to kill her father, she releases a storm upon them so great that it rivals the one that swept their world the night she was born.

Their small fleet of ships sink. The waves build until they swallow the clouds and the ice cracks beneath her, splitting like a beast yawning its jaws open. When the wind picks up, it whistles and worms through the masts and rigging until each ship falls prey to its force and not a single soul remains to tell the tale. 

When she emerges from the surge of power, she’s in the center of a crater miles away from her camp. She’s not sure how she got there. She’s not sure what she’s done. She just knows that there’s a headache splitting behind her eyes and blood drips from her nose. There’s a bald man with blue tattoos sitting in front of her sitting cross-legged as she blinks her way into awareness. His beard is long and gray and his robes are orange. He says, _You’re the Avatar now. You’ve got a destiny to honor._

She wants him to stay longer. She needs someone to tell her what she is, what she’s to do. _I’ve always just been a girl from the village. Nothing more. Nothing less._ But the words taste like a lie even as she says them. She even reaches for him, stretches her fingers out wide so she can wrap her hand around the thin bones of his tattooed wrist. But he’s gone—smoke in the air—before she can lay a finger on him.

Aumanil stumbles back to the village, a heap of blooming bruises. Her overclothes are torn, the parka reduced to shreds. She should be cold, but she’s not. Her breath of fire keeps her warm and steam rises from her back like she’s a phoenix rising from the ashes.

Her youngest sister greets her first when finally makes it to the outskirts of the camp. Kurozuka clings to her waist and frets over the cuts on her eldest sister’s face. The young Avatar can’t feel the wounds. Shock has made everything hazy. Tikaani follows after Kurozuka closely. He licks her wounds, whimpering as he wraps his fluffy tail around her shaking body. He bares his teeth at anyone else who gets too close.

Sesi and Miki hide behind their father’s back. Her father, who’d always been the strongest, bravest man in her life, swallows hard when he looks at his eldest daughter. Mama is nowhere to be found. Her father looks at her, severe and pained, before reluctantly raising his arm. A silent invitation. A silent warning.

They never find out if it was the pirates or the Avatar State that killed her mother and it does no one good to speculate. They try their best to go back to normal—but what is that when you know you have the ability to create and crush nations, to bring the mightiest to their knees?

It’s in the quiet dinners, the way the village now avoids her when she’d once been its center, how her father continues to teach Sesi and Miki how to waterbend but excludes his eldest. Not that she needs to be trained. She’d long since surpassed her father’s skillset, but inclusion would have been nice. Nowadays, Tikaani is her only companion. She spends most of her time running her fingers through his soft fur, patterned in a way that makes him look like he’s constantly just gone through a romp in the mud.

The village is scared of her. Her father and her sisters are terrified.

Aumanil doesn’t blame them. They have good reason to be. Since her first brush with the Avatar State, she’s been temperamental. The wind is always chasing her heels and even the slightest words cause her eyes to flicker like a lamp on a dark night. 

Only Kurozuka treats her the same. It’s her youngest sister who grips her hand and fills her with warmth and reminds her that she’s not invisible. That she’s more than this uncontrollable power that threatens to swallow her whole. They support each other in their loneliness. Since Kurozuka never learned to bend, the tribe whispers of her black heart like the stories warn. They don’t know her sister like Aumanil does. They don’t know her kindness.

Aumanil thinks it’s probably for the best when she leaves the tribe in search for an earth bending teacher. It was bound to happen sooner or later. While the sages and priests hadn’t yet found her, they eventually would and they’d cause such a big fuss. Sonam’s peace was failing all over the world if the travelers are to believed. Pirates are the smallest of concerns in comparison to the unrest rising on the continent. The world needs her. And she needs to learn control. She needs more than the icy tundra which only encourages her wildness.

Kurozuka begs her to stay, pleads her not to leave her behind. Since mother’s death, her father had taken a particular shining to the twins. She and Kurozuka have become ghosts in his world, shadows that dance at the edge. Kurozuka is afraid of being forgotten, afraid that there will be no one left to love her. Aumanil knows this and she wishes there was more she could do to reassure her sister that she was good and wonderful, not the monster superstition says she is.

“Take me with you, Nilly, _Please."_

Sonam shakes his head from behind Kurozuka’s shoulder. She’s spoken with the airbender once or twice in her dreams. He says she needs to go alone. He says that the Avatar needs to know how to be alone because there will never be someone alive who understands what it is like to hold starfire in their veins. Aumanil clenches her jaw, blinks away the snow that catches in her eyelashes as she stands at the shore. Even now, she can feel the glow of the Avatar State in her eyes, begging her to release it.

“I can’t,” she says and pulls her coat tighter around her. Tikaani’s brushes against her leg. He’s always been so good about comforting her. “I’m dangerous. I can’t control myself. You’re safer here.”

In the end, she leaves her sister on the shore and the Avatar State bursts from her when she’s in the middle of the ocean, the sea bowing to her emotions as easily as the heated bones of a walrus whale.

**IV.**

She learns to earthbend from a man who lives in Ba Sing Se. When she sees its walls for the first time, a vision crosses her mind. A man rips the borders into existence, blood dripping from his nose, eyes burning brighter than the sun. An army in oceanic blue approaches steadfast. _Waterbenders._ They cannot pass the walls. Not then. Not now. Not ever. 

Ba Sing Se remained unconquered for a thousand years after the walls were created. Aumanil suspects it’ll remain that way until the end of days. (Of course, she cannot know that in nine hundred years a child princess from the Fire Islands will make quick work of the impenetrable city.)

Two years pass before she masters the element of earth. Its strong, grounded nature does wonders to leash the power she struggled to control in her youth. 

When she moves westward the Fire Islands, she takes with her only the clothes on her back and a small bracelet given to her by her earthbending _sifu_. It’s laced together with sinew thread and carries the weight of whale teeth, volcanic rock, wooden bamboo beads, and shiny green crystals, a piece for each element and nation.

 _A reminder,_ he says, _of who you belong to._

She spends another two years with the Fire Sages learning the art of fire. Tikaani seems to prefer the Fire Islands to the South Pole or Ba Sing Se. Here, he is spoiled. They feed him more raw meat than he can stomach and bathe him in milk and rose oils. He’s too spoiled for his own good but if she’s honest she’ll admit that she too rather likes life on the islands. In the poles, she was feared for her power and in Ba Sing Se she was an animal on display; in the Fire Island, she is respected and loved. 

But eventually, the time comes when she has to leave. When fire bows to her will as easily as she might push a hot knife through butter, she makes plans to conquer the final element somewhere high in the eastern mountains. 

Aumanil visits home before she makes the journey to the Eastern Air Temple. For all she’s enjoyed Ba Sing Se’s grandeur and the Fire Islands’ exoticism and worship, she still finds herself missing life at home—and Old Man Koda’s seal jerky. Home is still home. She deserves a break. Years of hard work warrants a vacation. She sends word ahead via a hawk and smiles when her sisters reply that they are eagerly awaiting her arrival.

When she reaches the poles, she discovers that her father died several months prior during the winter. Aumanil is saddened by the news but she knows that he’d struggled without their mother. She prays he is much happier with her in the spirit lights.

Even if she’d wanted to, she isn’t given much time to dwell on her father’s passing. Sesi and Miki are women now, both eighteen suns old, and Sesi pregnant with her second child. Aumanil is to be an aunt and the thought warms her like no fire ever could. 

In her absence, Sesi has grown into a talented healer and married a boy from the tribe that Aumanil remembers well. He and her sister make a lovely couple, and it comforts her to know that her sisters have someone to look after them while she’s gone. Miki is a warrior, one of the strongest in the tribe; she wears her scars and waterskins with pride. 

Kurozuka has become something _other_. She’s not the shadow she feared she’d become. This should reassure her, but it doesn’t. She’s radiant. Her skin, dark and lovely, catches the bright sun and her eyes, the color of the midnight sky, take all and give nothing. There’s a hard, crystal-like quality to her. She’s still young, still a child, but undeniably something lurks beneath her calm surface. 

“Sister,” Aumanil says, smiling, and opens her arms wide. She ignores the unease. _This is the girl who stayed by your side, who loved you, who protected you._

Kurozuka returns the grin and her teeth glint. She meets Aumanil’s hug just as fiercely and when she pulls back, she grips the Avatar’s biceps and squeezes tightly. 

“You’ve gotten stronger. Not such a skinny little eel now, Nilly.” Kurozuka laughs. “You just might be able to overpower Sesi’s husband.”

The Avatar snorts. “I could say the same for you. I just mastered two elements. What’s your excuse, pidgeon?”

Kurozuka smiles, a sly tip of the corner of her mouth, and loops her arm through her sister’s. “A lady never tells her secrets.”

**V.**

Aumanil spends two weeks with her sisters laughing and eating and showing off her bending just like she did when she was a little girl before she continues east. She even takes Tikaani hunting on the tundra so they can remember what it’s like to feel the snow and wind and the thrill of it all. It’s not nearly enough time but an army of usurpers grows on the main continent that she needs to prepare for. A half-trained Avatar won’t be nearly enough to stop the hordes of earthbenders who wish to decimate the continent.

When she reaches the Eastern Air Temple, her teacher does not begin with basic forms and breathing exercises like her earth and fire masters. The old woman wakes her at dawn so she can scrub the hall floors clean and then sends her to the kitchen to make dinner for the other nuns. She spends months completing mundane tasks, watching children train the winds from a distance.

_We’ll work the arrogance out of you. One way or another, girl._

The women of the eastern air temple aren’t the gentle spring breezes she expected; they’re howling winds through the mountain tops, the heavy blows of a hurricane. When she trained in the Fire Islands, the people had treated her like a living god, a miracle among men. It was luxury and privilege and unlike anything she’d ever experienced, and she’d be the first to admit that some of it went to her head. _She_ is the Avatar. The World Spirit. Irreplaceable.

But here, her life is no more valuable than an insect’s life. At first, the treatment turns her mouth bitter. _All life is sacred,_ her master tells her. _Even the tiniest spider-fly caught in its own web. You serve the world, Avatar. Not the other way around._ If earth had taught her control over the Avatar State, then air taught her grace and humility. Her most valuable lesson. The hardest to learn. The arrogance she’d always carried with her is stripped away and replaced with something more sustainable. 

She’s not sure when she passes the unspoken test. But eventually, she does and she finds herself positioned in front of a freshly-carved set of spinning wooden doors. 

It takes her longer to master air. She’s free-spirited and wild in nature but admittedly too headstrong to master the easy ebb and flow of airbending. She’s a grown woman by the time she claims the title _master of all four elements_. But, like the others, it too falls prey to her will.

Aumanil leaves the temple three years after she first arrived with fewer belongings than she arrived with. She hugs her master tightly—the woman’s tattoos are so old and faded that they are more gray than they are blue now—and kisses her on the cheek.

Her master grumbles, shoos her off into a dying sunset, but smiles when the young waterbender turns to wave one last time before she leaves the mountain a storm of wind and fire.

**VI.**

The Avatar heads straight to continent where a war rages. Three years ago, it had been and starving farmers and prideful young men eager to prove themselves gathering in taverns to drink too much whiskey and dream of revolution.

Now, it is a full-fledged war. It’s the scent of blood and bone, fresh earth and rotting flesh. Violent screams as rebellion rages against city states. So many have already died by the time she reaches them. She heals what she can as she goes but it seems like she’s always a moment too late, a single step behind.

 _This is why the walls of Ba Sing Se were made,_ she thinks. _This is why one lifetime will never be enough._

**VII.**

She makes quick work of the rebellion. 

The armies do not recognize when she strides into their camps with a great, snarling wolf at her side. Aumanil has spent the last seven years in training, sequestered from the world’s watchful eye. They sneer and spit at her foriegn brown skin, threaten to crush her under the weight of a mountain. But when she fixes them with a gaze of blistering ice and they see the power that burns there, they scurry like rats. They are not familiar with this Avatar or her ways and, most worrisome, she is a woman.

(Historians will say, “If one simply looks the our past, female Avatars have proven themselves far more violent and unforgiving than their male counterparts. How can we trust them to keep peace and balance when they’re clearly too emotional to make unbiased decisions?” It’s a common critique voiced by the males who study the long and complicated history of the world’s Avatars. Few ask the right question—is it that she is truly unsuited for the job? Or is it that she is forced to violence because man simply refuses to bow in her presence—because in this one lifetime of a thousand and one lifetimes she wears the face of a woman? Yangchen makes quick work of this common misconception hundreds of years later but the misguided fear will last through Aumanil’s lifetime and through her next female reincarnation born into the Fire Nation.)

Is she cunning and cruel like Avatar Tora who would have killed them all if only to dust her hands and say the fight was over? Is she like Avatar Atsuo who would’ve given up his own life—and had done so in the end—stop any further bloodshed? Or is she like Jing-sheng whose power was so immense, even for an Avatar, and his mere presence was enough to stop war?

She is none of them.

Outside the walls of a governor's palace, she orders the insurgents to lower their weapons and cease their bending. There are, of course, those who curl their lips when she, a woman and an outsider, gives the order. She ends their insubordination with several swift movements of her arms. The river nearby gives her more than enough water to freeze the dissenters in their tracks. Tikaani bares his teeth to quell the remaining thoughts of rebellion. 

With the revolutionaires stopped, she marches into the palace. Her armor, which is fashioned to resemble the summer clothes she wore at the South Pole, flows around her as she searches for the governor. With her wolf at her side and her waterskins strapped to her hips, no one dares to stop her.

The estate’s staff flee when they see the young Avatar. Aumanil can’t help but notice how the gilded, golden walls contract with the bruises on the servants arms and the sharp quality of their cheeks and collars.

“You must be the new Avatar!” the governor croons from his throne. He is a fat man with red cheeks and robes of violet silk. “Are you here so that I might thank you for stopping the peasants beyond my walls?”

Aumanil laces her hands behind her back and pulls back her shoulders. “No,” she says.

The smile on the governor’s face falters.

“I am here to tell you that you are removed from your position. You are to leave the estate with your family by first light tomorrow,” she says slowly. “If you leave by morning, I will personally escort you to safety. ”

The governor’s smile is gone now. Not even a whisper remains. Rage, pure and unadulterated, smears across his mouth and brow. “How dare you?” he hisses. The hair on Tikaani’s hackles bristles and he growls lowly. “You may be the Avatar but you are new. Inexperienced. _You are a woman._ You do not have the authority—”

“Leave by first light,” she repeats and fixes that icy gaze on him, “or I will turn you over to the rebels outside. I will not stop them from breaching your walls again. I will let them do what they will with you and your wife.”

**VIII.**

The governor and his wife leave two hours before dawn. They take with them enough gold to begin a comfortable life elsewhere. Aumanil declares the general of the ragtag army outside the walls the new governor.

“If I ever return and see that you have begun to sit by and watch idly while your people suffer,” she warns and she remembers the blisters on her hands as she scrubbed the floors of the Eastern Air Temple, “I will not be as kind as I was to your predecessor. Remember where you came from. Remember who put you there.”

**IX.**

Aumanil continues her path through the southern half of the continent, dethroning governors whose pockets remain heavy while their people starve. She disbands rebel groups who have gathered only because they miss the rush of battle and not because there is cause for revolution. Seven years of training has not prepared her for the horrors of battle. 

Her airbending master was correct. _We’ll work the arrogance out of you, girl._ When she finishes her campaign across the continent eight months after she removed the first governor from his throne, she no longer sees the world through rose-colored glasses. Her posture is heavy with the weight of her choices and the war crimes she was unable to stop, unable to cure.

She is weary and tired. Battle has worn her down in more than one way and she needs time to remember that the world is not always made of blood and bone.

Aumanil shuts her eyes and rolls onto her side, curled into herself in the space of her cramped, cold cot. There is no fire to keep her warm, only the thick fur of her coat and the firm body of a man she met on the road. Tikaani is curled up somewhere in the corner of her tent and she can feel the weight of his stare on her and a tear leaks from the corner of her closed eyes.

As she drifts off to sleep, she dreams of home. Of salt and sea and wind. Of her sisters and her nieces and nephews who are now old enough to walk and talk. Of the sled wolves her father raised when she was a girl and their wet noses pressed into her cheek. She misses the months she spent running through the camp covered in mud and grass stains with Tikanni howling as he chased her heels. She misses the way her mother’s ice cream tasted when it melted in her mouth and the sound of her mother’s laugh when Aumanil smeared it across her cheek. She misses her girlhood. She misses _so much._

When the civil war on the continent is over and the people can begin the long process of rebuilding without her help, the Avatar finally allows herself to return home. 

She knows that she can’t stay there forever. She has a long lifetime of peace-keeping to look forward to as a fully-realized Avatar. But for now, she can allow herself a break. A moment to sit back and glue pieces of herself back together now that the war is over.

Her ship rocks to a stop at the South Pole’s shore, warm sun shining on her back. It’s summertime. Aumanil smiles when she breathes in deep and tastes the ocean deep in her lungs. 

The sound of her boots clicking against the dock melts against the sound of creaking old wooden boards and the soft whirr of the waves reaching shore as she finally reaches land. The grass is sparse and muddy, still trying to grow as it emerges from spring. 

Her sisters are not there to greet her. She had sent word ahead with a messenger hawk that she would be arriving soon and had received no response. Perhaps they were busy. They are mothers now, leaders and warriors of their tribe. Perhaps they hadn’t seen her boat on the horizon.

Aumanil makes the walk into camp. Even though years have passed, the location for their summer camp has remained the same. (After she destroyed the makings of a permanent camp when the pirates first attacked, the elders agreed to continue moving between their winter and summer locations.)

It’s unusually quiet. The tribe likes to spend as much time outside in the warmer months. She herself remembers how terribly restless she was as a girl after spending the winter cooped up in their igloo. She and Tikaani had hated it and sometimes they snuck out while her family slept if only to stretch their legs for a moment; when the ice thawed, there was no stopping them. Her younger years were spent playing in the mud and when she learned to waterbend, she practiced in the frigid waters while Tikaani splashed around the shore. The summer camp was always so full of life. People smoke fish and this was the time of year her father used to breed his wolves. She knows Miki took over the practice and yet there are no pups, not a single whine or yip. The Avatar frowns. 

Months at war have taught her well enough to know—something is very, _very_ wrong here. 

**X.**

Aumanil pauses at the threshold of camp. Smoke rises from the tips of tents, so she knows that the camp isn’t abandoned. Tikaani bumps his nose against the back of her hand and she absently runs her fingers through the fur on his head.

There are no children, no pups, no laughter. None of the things that mark the Southern Water Tribe.

She presses forward. Tikanni follows at her side.

The camp is made differently every year but the important things stay the same. The chief’s tent is somewhere near the middle. She’ll likely find the large fire pit on the eastern border of the camp where the tribe gathers at night to share a meal and tell stories. Her family always preferred setting up in the northwest corner; she hopes that has stayed the same.

She spots the worn shape of her family’s tent exactly where she hoped it would be. A banner dyed indigo with berries hangs over the entrance. Aumanil remembers when her father made it. She had sat next to him as he mashed berries and flowers and stretched and smoothed the leather.

Her fingers wrap around the edge of the flap. Aumanil swallows. _Something is wrong something is wrong something is wrong._

Stepping inside the tent is like stepping inside her childhood again. It’s warm and inviting, filled with the smell of meat cooking over a fire and freshly ground herbs. Pelts cover the floor and she sees that a table—a _real_ table made of _real_ wood—sits in the corner. A bow sits on its surface.

“Hello?” the Avatar says.

A head of familiar dark hair pokes around a canvas wall. _Since when did this tent have two rooms?_

“Nilly? Is that you? Spirits! When did you get back?”

Aumanil smiles and spreads her arms wide as her youngest sister, now a young woman, barrels into her arms. A metallic smell hangs heavy in the air around her and when Aumanil buries her nose into her hair, she can taste it on her tongue.

“You’ve gotten so big.” 

Kurozuka snorts. “It _has_ been four years. I’m not a little girl anymore.”

And she certainly isn’t.

When Aumanil last saw her sister, her chest was flat and hips were narrow and fat still clung to the tops of her cheeks. Since then, she’d filled out the way every young girl prayed she would and her face had lost its child-like qualities. Her structure is sharp but not in a manner that suggests she hasn’t been eating enough; she is simply striking,like the tip of a razor-sharp glacier glittering in the sun. Her full mouth is a deep shade of red that brings out the lighter shades of blue in her midnight eyes and her hair is long and thick and falls over her shoulder in a tightly woven braid. There’s a certain quality she can’t put her finger on that makes Kurozuka’s beauty almost unnatural. _Almost._ Aumanil tries not to stare and suffocates the voice in her head that is still singing, _something is wrong something is wrong._

Aumanil pulls her sister in for one more squeeze. “No, you’re not.”

Kurozuka sucks in a breath and her lips pull up in a closed-mouth smile. “Why don’t you sit down? I’ll get you something to eat. You must be starving after your journey.”

Her sister leaves, disappearing back into the second room. Aumanil takes a seat at the table, taking off her overcoat before sitting down. Tikaani sits at her feet but a low rumble continues in his chest and his eyes are trained

“Shhhh,” she murmurs and scratches behind his ear. “What are you so worked up over?”

Tikaani growls louder when Kurozuka emerges again with two wooden plates piled high with spit-roasted meats and greens.

Aumanil’s stomach rumbles and Kurozuka smiles when she sets the plate in front of her and slides into the chair across from her.

The Avatar picks up a fork and moves to stab into the meat when Tikaani bumps his head into her leg, hard, and snaps his teeth. She clicks her tongue and looks to her sister apologetically.

“I’m sorry. I don’t know why he’s acting like this. Are you hungry? I just fed you.” Aumanil tears off a piece of meat with her hands and offers it to Tikaani. He sniffs it before jerking his head to the side refusing it, his upper lip curled. He fixes his blue eyes on Kurozuka.

Her sister makes a small humming in the back of her throat before she smiles softly at the wolf. “Well, he always was a stubborn animal. Perhaps he misses the continent.”

Aumanil nods her head in agreement before spearing a piece of fish of the plate. She recognizes the whiter color of halibut and the grayer, gamey hue of caribou but there’s a third meat she doesn’t recall eating as a girl. It’s redder, softer. It’d been what she’d offered to Tikanni.

There’s a moment of silence as the two sisters realize that they are more strangers now than anything else.

“So,” Kurozuka begins, clearing her throat, “how was the continent? We heard about the war. I’m glad to see your safe, sister.”

Aumanil sets down her fork. Despite her hunger, the nausea rolling through her as that worried song still sings through her makes it hard to eat. Thoughts of the continent make it impossible.

“It was difficult. No amount of training can truly prepare you for the moment you see a man’s insides on the outside.”

Her sister shakes her head and laces her fingers in her lap as she trains her hawk-like gaze on the Avatar. “No, it doesn’t. But I suppose you’ve got a lifetime to get used to it. Do you know what you’ll do next?” The unspoken question is there: _how long will you stay here?_

“I planned on spending some time at home. I still need to master the Avatar State completely but I can do that from here. I don’t plan on returning to the mainland until they need me. Most of the world is not… kind to a female Avatar.”

“Well, they’re a stupid lot. I kept tabs on you and from what my sources tell me you’ve done an excellent job of it. They’re calling you the Storm Bird. And if you listen to all of the stories, they’ve made poor Tikaani out to be a monstrous beast.”

Aumanil chuckles and conjures an image of Tikaani rolling on his back, his pink tongue lolling out of his mouth. She reaches down again to stroke his fur. Her wolf huffs. He’s still staring at Kurozuka, the tip of his black nose twitching.

Another beat of silence.

“Where are Sesi and Miki? I sent a messenger hawk ahead but I never heard back.”

Kurozuka shrugs and tosses her braid over her shoulder. “Oh, you know know how busy they can get. Sesi had her fourth child earlier this winter. A boy. They named him after his father.”

“And Miki?”

“Likely off training the little rugrats. Sesi has been blessed with a whole consort of bender children.” The words roll off her tongue venomously. It seems that even after all of these years bending is still a sore spot for her sister. “But they’re lovely children. I enjoyed them.”

Aumanil breathes in and her anxiety begins to burn like a poison in her blood. It’s not something she can ignore for much longer. She doesn’t know where it’s come from. She looks up and searches Kurozuka, _really_ looks at her. The blackness of her eyes. The redness of her lips. The hard set to her jaw and the unnatural point to her teeth. Aumanil looks to Tikanni then to the food on her plate. Her stomach rolls.

“Kurozuka…” she says slowly. “What have you done?”

That red mouth of her splits into a terrifying grin. “ _Sister_ , I thought you’d never ask.” Kurozuka clicks her sharp nails against the wooden table. “The spirits provided me with a way to bend. Stronger than _anything_ our sisters or mother were ever capable of.”

“ _Kurozuka_.” The Avatar hisses her sisters name this time. All she can think of is her unanswered letters, the empty camp, the way she talks about her sisters and their children as if they’re only memories.

Her sister is unfazed. She reaches down to her own plate and picks up a piece of that strange red meat. She puts it in her mouth, closes her eyes, moans quietly as she chews and swallows. 

“Do you know how sick Sesi got when she was pregnant with her first child? Of course you don’t. From what you told us, I believe you were still in Ba Sing Se, training where they adored you. We tried to send word but you hadn’t told anyone where you were going to train. She was so very, very sick. It was like the baby was a parasite. The healers tried to help her but it seemed like no matter what they did Sesi just got sicker and sicker. We both know Miki was a fighter, not a healer, and father was useless after mother died. And you?—you were nowhere to be found. It was up to me to figure out how to save our sister’s life.

“I prayed to the spirits. I thought of those stories mother told us, of our ancestors who prayed to Tui and La for a blessing so that she might save her people. I prayed and I prayed and no one answered. It wasn’t until I made a journey to the forest at the center of the South Pole where the spirit portal is that I was answered. But it wasn’t Tui or La that answered me. No, it was a spirit named Vatuu.”

Aumanil’s heart pounds. She’s never heard that name before and yet she feels as if she’s just been covered in ice. A voice whispers to her, a feather-light tickle at the edge of her consciousness.

_If you and Vaatu have the same fight every ten thousand years, how come one of you hasn't destroyed the other?_

_He cannot destroy light anymore than I can destroy darkness. One cannot exist without the other._

Aumanil tightens her fist, reaching for the earth around her, she allows the fire to gather in her core. _Where are my sisters?_ she wonders desperately. _Where is my family?_

“He told me that there was a way I could gain the ability to waterbend. It wouldn’t just be like the ability born benders are given. No, it was stronger, so much stronger. With it, I could heal Sesi. I could ensure that both she and her unborn child. I asked him what I had to do. Sesi was so ill. She had days left, hours. We were out of options and I was unwilling to let my sister die, even if she could be so spoiled and cruel at times. He said I only had to bring our father to him. If I brought him Father, he’d tell me how to save Sesi. So I did.

“Vatuu told me that for all things in this world, there is a give and take. I could not gain the ability to bend without taking it from another. He told me I could save our sister if only I took the ability to bend from our father.”

“Kurozuka, _what did you do to him?_ Please tell me you didn’t kill him. Tell me you didn’t kill our father,” she begs, her eyes burning. Their father had his flaws, had been absent after their mother died, but… to kill him? At the value of a dark spirit’s words?

Her younger hissed and bared her teeth. “You were gone and Sesi was dying. _I did what I had to._ And it worked. Vatuu told me how to take Father’s bending and I used it to save Sesi’s life. I healed her in secret. Both she and her baby lived. And suddenly I wasn’t just this weak little thing they were forced to look out for. I was _powerful._ ”

“You _killed_ our father for that power!”

“He was wasting away! And with that power I saved lives! You weren’t here. No one was coming.” Kurozuka thrusts a finger out and her mouth pinches in rage. “I did what I had to.”

 _“Where are Sesi and Miki? Where are they now?”_ she bellows, slamming her hand on the table, her voice deepening as her past lives begin to channel their energy through her body.

“They’re _gone_ , sister. I liked the power that consuming another’s chi gave me. So I did it again. _And again._ I killed my own tribesmen and I ate their livers and I don’t regret it one bit sister. Miki found out what I was doing. She was just as full as her justful rage as you. I killed her and I ate her liver and _spirits_ there was nothing more divine. Sesi fled. I imagine she’s living somewhere on the continent with that whelp of a husband and her children.”

Aumanil looks back at the unfamiliar pink meat on her plate and feels the bile rise in her throat. She shoves it away from her and clenches her hands and grief and rage rolls through her. _Miki_. Beautiful, wonderful, proud Miki. Dead. _She’s dead_.

“Kurozuka,” she whispers, the light bleeding into her eyes finally. “What have you _done_ to yourself? The tribe—they’re hiding from _you,_ aren’t they?”

“I did what I had to. _And I don’t regret it._ ”

**XI.**

Jinhai feels himself being pulled back into that in-between place. This time, he is more aware of his surroundings and his attention immediately goes to the female before him. He recognizes her from the memories. Aumanil. Before, she’d been a strange face with a strange voice; now he feels like he’s reconnected with apart of himself. Maybe he has.

“What—what was that? She was eating their livers?” Though he has no physical form here, he knows he’d be fighting the urge to vomit if he were in his body. The smell of charred meat still lingers in his mind like a phantom menace. 

_My sister discovered a way to absorb a bender’s chi. Whatever it is that grants us access to the elements, she managed to harness it and devour it per Vatuu’s instructions. By consuming another’s flesh, she was granted the ability to bend for a short period of time but she always burned through it because it was never hers to keep. And the bending she unlocked was powerful. So powerful that I was unable to completely defeat her that day._

“Kurozuka… so she killed your sister? Miki? And your father?”

_Yes. He was her first victim and she was able to keep his death a secret. How I never came to realize what was happening during my short visit… I do not know. it was through him that she was able to practice the ancient and dark methods she discovered. I failed my sister._

“You said she was too powerful to defeat completely but you managed to stop her, didn’t you?”

_I did. Along with the knowledge he gave her to absorb another chi, Vatuu told her that there were ways she could preserve her soul even when her body was destroyed. When I fought my sister, I knew there was no sparing her. She was too far gone. I would be forced to take her life. And Kurozuka knew that too. She knew I would end her and she knew I’d fully come into my abilities as an Avatar._

Aumanil’s reflection flickered and small flecks of light danced around her. She was wearing the clothes she wore when she quelled the civil war except now a crown of sorts was perched on her head. A circular pendant sat on the peak of her hairline while two chains of pearls looped around her head to keep it in place. Whatever it was, the artifact was something she’d gained after Kurozuka.

_She vowed she’d return and she would end the Avatar Cycle. Not for the power but because she knew that as long as the Avatar lived, my soul would live on. Before I could take my sister’s life, she meditated into the Spirit World. I was young and stupid and, most importantly, I was relieved that the responsibility of her death had been taken from me. I was already grieving the death of one sister. I thought that she wouldn’t be able to cause any damage from across the veil, that though her spirit still lived on there was no way she could cause any real harm. And for a long time, she couldn’t. The veil between the spiritual and physical world was strong._

“What allowed her through? What changed?”

 _The Air Nomad Genocide,_ Aumanil said. _And Fire Lord Azulon’s death. The genocide severely damaged the wall between our worlds. It caused a massive imbalance and it was then that Kurozuka started looking for a way out. When Kei killed Azulon in such a state of rage and vengeance, when she performed an act that defied the very nature of Raava, our Avatar spirit, she was able to create a hole in the boundary that separates the physical and spiritual worlds. But spending so much time without a body made her weak and she needed a strong host in order to permanently return to our world. She began by sending spirits under her control. They kidnapped children and families, brought them to her, and she absorbed their chi in order to regain her strength._

“That’s what was taking all of the kids? Hotaru and I always heard stories… but we didn’t think much of it. What is she planning now? What does she want? How can we stop her?”

_That is something I do not entirely know, young Avatar. I am limited in my abilities in the Spirit World, but there are whispers. She is desperate to leave the Spirit World, Jinhai, and she wishes to use the Avatar’s body as a means to cross the veil._

Jinhai recoils. He thinks of the woman he’d seen in Aumanil’s memories and the violation of being removed from his own body. What would she do with his hands? Who would she hurt?

_She’s always searching. My sister is a persistent woman and she’s grown strong as she’s consumed the souls she brought to the Spirit World. Kei thought it would be best if we distanced ourselves from you, especially since you’ve had so little training. Our link to you makes you easy to find._

Jinhai begins to ask another question–he has so many and finally it feels like he’s getting the answers he’s so desperately wanted since his role as Avatar was thrust upon him—when Aumanil’s reflection shimmers once quickly. Then she’s replaced by another face, this one far more familiar.

 _You need to leave. Now,_ she snarls and Jinhai’s mouth goes dry. That pointy face and white paint. It’s _her_. The Liberator. The Conqueror. _Kei_. She’s so young and so small. She looks like she should be giggling over school boys and sweet cakes. 

_She’s coming. You need to leave. Go back. Now._ Wide, watery green eyes and a pursed mouth–she looks terrified. The woman who had single-handedly torn apart the bending prisons and bent Fire Lord Azulon’s blood with only her rage to strengthen her.

Jinhai closes his eyes and searches for the link back to his body like he’s told. Kei’s fear is a driving force that tickles the back of his neck. When he finds the link, it’s a glowing thread in an ocean of black. He reaches for it, feels his fingers wrap around its warmth—

The prick at his neck turns into a firm, heavy grip and he’s ripped back suddenly before he can even think to fight back. The glowing thread disappears and slips through his grasp like hot sand. Panic claws at his throat and _he can feel her._ Now he knows what Aumanil had meant about her presence. He can feel the evil and darkness in her soul as it wraps around his own mind, the corruption of Vatuu’s touch.

Jinhai opens his eyes. Kei still stands before him, though she’s farther away now. Her mouth is moving. She’s offering her hand. Jinhai reaches for it. _If only he can—_

Kurozuka’s grip on his neck tightens. Then, she drags him into the darkness. 

Kei vanishes. 

The witch hisses in his ear, _I’ve been waiting a long time for you, Avatar._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> kurozuka is inspired by a japanese yokai of the same name. if you're interested in learning more about her original lore, here is the link! [kurozuka & her yokai lore.](http://yokai.com/kurozuka/) i highly recommend it. it's extremely interesting. 
> 
> [click here](https://i-would-like-a-jelly-baby.tumblr.com/post/190428273917) to see more fan art by a lovely reader. it’s hotaru and sora!!
> 
> also, i created a comprehensive list of all of the avatars in this universe so [click here](https://docs.google.com/document/d/1rHlf_7SyuCP2E-aErU4VTlInYp5PYNaeR5390qFOCio/edit?usp=sharing) if you want to see the line of avatars i made up for this fic.
> 
> ———
> 
> NEXT: eight | the dead and the dying


	9. 8 | the dead and the dying

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hello! i hope everyone is doing well and staying safe and healthy with the global pandemic going on. life for me has been kinda hectic, hence my absence for a few months. my schedule is finally starting to hammer out into something consistent, so i'm trying to find more time to write, for this project and other on-going works i have. 
> 
> hopefully you all also survived the confusion of me splitting this fic up. i decided to make this into a series, versus one large blob of words, so each avatar has it's own "fic" so it's easier to find. my intentions were honestly selfish with this as i think more people will want to read arc 3 since it has all of the OG team avatar members (minus aang) and other familiar faces. soooo they'll be able to immediately read that, if they want to bypass all of the buildup i've written to get to arc 3. (which is dumb imo because Jinhai and kei are babies but the fandom wants what it wants.)
> 
> either way, the chapter count is accurate so we only have three more chapters to post before i delve into avatar aiko.
> 
> shit really happens in this chapter and i'm not even sorry. enjoy the ride.

**I.**

Ahote isn’t sure how long he spends kneeling over the Avatar’s body, using his fire to keep him firmly placed in limbo. It feels like days have passed but maybe it’s only been minutes. This technique is rather tiring.

Dragging the flames over the Avatar’s belly to rest on his chest, the Sun Warrior can feel the thread between Jinhai’s physical body and wherever his spirit has gone. If he closes his eyes, he can almost see it—glowing softly, warm like a summer’s day sun. The bond only grows stronger the longer that Jinhai remains unconscious. 

But then there’s something there. A strong, heavy tug and Ahote feels his fire splutter as icy fingers trail down his spine. The bond between Jinhai’s body and spirit pulls taught, groaning under the force. 

Panic rises in his gut and Ahote lunges for the bond, tries to grab it and heal it before it breaks, but whatever has grabbed hold of it is faster and stronger and feral as it sinks its teeth in and pulls. 

With one final tug, the bond snaps. The sound echoes in Ahote’s ears like the crack of a whip and his mouth fills with the taste of ice and metal and blood. 

Ahote falls back onto his heels. His breath comes in heavy pants while his pulse thrums behind his ears, a dull roar followed by a high-pitched ring. He’s been evicted from Jinhai’s chi paths, the tether between them broken. 

It takes him a moment to orient himself after being thrown so violently from the Avatar’s body. When he does, he opens his eyes. Jinhai still lies on the floor. The earthbender’s eyes are closed and his chest rises and falls softly. Ahote scrambles forward, fear burning his blood.

He summons fire and flushes it through Jinhai’s chi paths, searching for the signature of his soul. But there’s nothing there. Only a pulse and the steady beat of his heart, the pieces that mechanically keep his body alive. Even still, those feel weaker than they should.

Ahote curses as terror—raw, real terror—settles like a heavy weight in his belly.

“What is it? What’s wrong?”

Ahote’s head whips up. He had forgotten that Mela waited with him. Wrinkles form around her mouth and forehead as she frowns.

“He’s… gone.”

“What do you mean?” Mela swoops forward, falling to her knees on the other side of Jinhai’s body. Her fingers quickly press into the pulse point at his throat. When she finds the soft thrum, she blows out a relieved breath. “He’s still alive.”

“No, it’s not that.” Ahote recalls the piercing cold that had come down upon the bond like a guillotine. “I could feel him. I was keeping him steady, tethering him to his body since his connection to his past lives is so weak. But something took hold of him and now he’s gone. I can’t feel his spirit in his body and the bond is broken.”

Mela’s face darkens. “He’s trapped in the Spirit World?”

Ahote pauses. He desperately wants to say _no_ —that Jinhai is only momentarily gone, that he will feel Jinhai’s spirit in just a few more moments.

“Yes,” he admits. “Something took him. I tried to stop it but… it was so strong.”

Mela swears and if Ahote weren’t so distraught, he might have thought it was funny. Jinhai would’ve laughed at the mild-mannered woman saying something so foul. Ahote’s eyes flicker to his still body. Wherever he’s gone, they need to get him back.

(And not just because he’s the Avatar. Against his better judgement, Ahote has bonded with the boy. He’s not sure when the shift happened but he hasn’t been with Jinhai because of their deal in quite some time.)

“His body isn’t going to last long without his spirit,” Mela says. Her fingers lace in her lap and the knuckles go white as she grips them tight. “You need a Water Tribe healer. It’s the only thing that’s going to keep him alive long enough for you to get his spirit back.”

Ahote swallows hard. “Sully is a healer but I don’t think he’s good enough for what you’re wanting him to do.”

She shakes her head. “No, not him. An old friend of mine.” Mela stands, brushing the front of her orange robes, and a muscle in her jaw ticks. A soft breeze rustles through the room as she sucks in a careful breath. “She was raised in the Northern Water Tribe and trained by their healers. She’s the best healer I know.”

“Can she be trusted?” Ahote asks, frowning. “She won’t sell him out? He’s vulnerable like this. We have to protect him from the spirits that keep attacking, whatever has ripped his soul into the Spirit World, and the small army of citizens who’d rather live in a world _without_ the Avatar.”

“Himiko won’t sell him out.” Mela’s voice hard is like steel. “She was one of Avatar Kei’s masters. She will do what she can to help him. And where you’re taking him—he’ll be safe from dark spirits there. It’s a spiritual epicenter. They wouldn’t dare attack him there. 

“I’ve handled Dorjee’s training. She’s stronger now and a quick study. I do not doubt her capability to keep him safe. Sora has been training Hotaru. Your team is much stronger than it was when you first arrived at my temple. You are not alone in his defense, Warrior.” 

Mela begins to walk, her steps silent as she stalks from the stone chamber. Ahote is quick to follow her, though he hates to leave Jinhai’s body unguarded. He spares a glance over his shoulder. He still looks like he has only fallen asleep on the ground, too tired to stay awake for his morning meditation.

“Where is she located?” Ahote asks, falling into step next to the shorter woman. Fire and anxiety build in his belly as his skin itches with the urge to bend. 

“The Foggy Swamp.”

It’s closer than the Northern Water Tribe, he notes. They can be there in two days if they take Dorjee’s sky bison. 

“Avatar Kei’s birthplace.” Ahote frowns. “I thought that the tribe there was destroyed during the war. Why is Himiko there?”

“It _was_ destroyed,” Mela says. “Azulon’s men burned it to the ground and slaughtered her people. There was nothing left. But Kei travelled with Himiko for quite some time and she taught her master a lot about the Foggy Swamp Tribe’s traditions and bending styles. When the war ended, not all of the waterbenders wanted to return to the polar tribes. Some of them were born into captivity. The poles were not their home. Himiko and a handful of the survivors took up residence in the swamp and devoted themselves to learning and respecting what the tribe once was. Given that the original tribe immigrated there under similar circumstances, they’ve done well there. The last time Himiko and I spoke, she said there were sixty members in the tribe and two thirds were benders.”

“How does no one know that a group of people live there?”

“How does the world not know your tribe exists, Warrior?” Mela shrugs. “At the center of the swamp, there’s a great banyan-grove tree. Kei’s tribe called it the First Tree. They said that the tree appeared when the world was created and from it all life originated. That every root, every stem, every living breathing thing on this earth is connected to it. Himiko has never told me the details but she told me that she once prayed to the tree and the tree answered. Since then, the world has turned a blind eye to the tribe’s existence.”

Mela stops and only then does Ahote realize she has brought him to the courtyard where Sora and Hotaru train. Ahote’s heart lodges in his throat. He’s going to have to be the one to tell Hotaru that he lost Jinhai. That he failed. Again.

“Tell them and then tell Dorjee and Suluk. I’ll send a message ahead to tell Himiko that you are on your way and get some of my people to prepare Yeshe. You need to leave immediately. He needs Himiko _now_. Bodies don’t last more than a few days without their spirits.”

The airbender begins to leave again and Ahote suddenly feels weak in the knees. 

“Mela,” he calls out. 

She stops and turns to face him. Her mouth is severe. Her gray eyes shine like two silver coins.

“Whatever it is that took him, I’ve never felt anything like it. Do you know—is it possible to destroy a soul in the Spirit World?”

A shadow crosses her face. “There are forces in the Spirit World beyond our understanding and stories we have long forgotten. I cannot tell you what it is that took him or why dark spirits have hunted him because I do not know. Only Jinhai holds those answers. Pray that his past lives protect him.”

 **II.**

_Jinhaiiiiiiiiiii_ , the voice hisses, slithering through his mind. Though he is without a body, Jinhai feels the phantom stutter of his heart hammering in his chest. _Jinhaiiii. Oh, how I’ve waited for you, Jinhai._

“Kurozuka,” he whispers. His knees sink into the ground, like he is kneeling in dirt that is soft the day after a storm. He can hardly see the world around him and nothing has any real shape; he is surrounded by an impermeable night, a heavy darkness that presses in at his shoulders and sides. 

Jinhai draws in a deep breath, expecting the scent of damp earth to follow but he tastes blood instead, coppery and sour.

Carrion. Rot. Burnt flesh.

The taste of it blooms in his mouth.

Nausea roils deep within his gut. 

Something hisses in the shadows. Like a creature slinking in from the edge of the forest into the light of a waning campfire, he sees his first look at the demon—a true _yokai._

In Aumanil’s memories, she was strikingly, painfully beautiful; she was beautiful the way that the barren tundras of the poles are with glittering ice and black stone.

Here, she is anything but. Her face is terrifyingly gaunt with sickly pale skin suctioned to the high, sharp angles of her cheekbones. Kurozuka’s mouth is curled into a snarl, revealing rows of yellow teeth that are sharpened to a deadly point. Her eyes, once a beautiful midnight blue, have turned black and consumed the entirety of her eye. Her body is thin, wiry with a terrifying, unnatural strength, and her nails are black and long, almost talon-like.

Kurozuka shuffles into the small halo of light. Jinhai sucks in a breath.

Her mouth twitches and she bares her teeth. The tips are stained dark.

“Yes,” she says and Jinhai hears her true voice, not a voice whispered to his mind or spoken from the dark, for the first time. Her mouth moves like it’s no longer made for words. “This is what my sister did to me. I sacrificed everything to save our sister and her child and this is how she repaid me.”

Jinhai swallows and his fingers curl into the ground below him. “You killed and _ate_ your father.”

“In pursuit of something greater.” She slinks closer until she is only inches away. He can smell her breath here and the smell of something rotten grows stronger. “Have you not done the same?” Then she whispers to his mind— _Have you not done terrible things in the name of the one you love? Have you not done unforgivable things in Hotaru’s name?_ “Tell me, Avatar, what makes you any better than me?”

Jinhai grinds his teeth. “I, for one, have never eaten a human being. And I haven’t killed children. I haven’t killed _anyone_.”

Kurozuka grins and something oily dribbles from the corner of her mouth. _Blood_. She rests one taloned hand on his face and caresses his cheek. 

“But you will. My sister did. She killed her own flesh and blood after she cursed me for doing the same. If I let you, you’d spill seas of blood in your lifetime.” Kurozuka leans closer and Jinhai goes stone stiff as she drags her tongue from the corner of his jaw to his temple. “But I won’t let you. I’m going to stop the war that Raava has ravaged on the physical world. Vaatu and I will restore the world to its natural order, the way it was before Raava corrupted it.”

Jinhai recoils, horror dawning across his features. “What are you _talking_ about?”

“Oh, I know how sneaky Raava was. Vaatu told me the truth of it. She betrayed him and tricked that mortal Wan into bonding with her.” Kurozuka tilts her head like a predator studying its prey and ran her tongue over her bottom lip. “It’s her fault that the world is in chaos. Before she claimed the title of Avatar, the world was peaceful. Vaatu wishes to restore order. He has asked me to be his vessel while he remains trapped in the Tree of Time. He has given me one order and it is one I think I will thoroughly enjoy.”

“And what is that?”

Kurozuka grins, her mouth widening like a snake unhinging its jaw. Jinhai turns his face as she leans in, her breath hot and rancid on his cheek.

_Devour your soul._

**III.**

Mela wastes no time. Monks and nuns pack Dorjee’s bison, Yeshe, with more provisions than they will need for a two-day journey. Yeshe groans as the airbenders move around her in short gusts of wind, hopping from her saddle to the ground and back again as they load her up. 

Hotaru hasn’t left Jinhai’s side. Since Ahote delivered the news that something had gone terribly wrong, she’d gone to him and placed his head in her lap. She laced her fingers in his and hadn’t moved since. 

Dorjee can’t help the shake in her hands. She is not sure if it is fear or anger but something courses through her, something loud and hideous. It demands retribution. 

Ahote comes up behind her and places a hand on her shoulder. She doesn’t jump. She recognizes the heat in his touch. It’s something she’s begun to look to as a source of comfort. 

“Mela says we’re just about ready to leave,” he murmurs, then pauses. Dorjee balls her fists as that emotion rages in her. “Are you alright?”

She shakes her head slowly. “There’s always something—something hurting me, hurting the people I care for. When does it stop?”

Dorjee feels his body still next to her. When she turns to him, she finds that his golden eyes are on her and they are intent as they search her face. “I don’t know,” he says, and it sounds like an apology. Then he follows with one and she understands why. “I failed him in Makapu. I allowed him to be injured. And I failed him here. I allowed whatever it was that took him to rip him away. I apologize, Dorjee, for breaking my promise to protect him.”

“You didn’t make any vows,” she says with a small shake of her head. “You made a deal. He restores you as chief of your tribe and you train him in firebending.”

“That’s where you’re wrong. I made a vow to myself when I realized he was more to me than a means to an end, when I realized he was becoming my brother. I vowed I would keep him safe—that I would keep all of you safe.”

Dorjee reaches down. She’s not sure what drives her to do it but she grips his hand tightly and squeezes. He seems shocked that she’s done it; she tries not to smile at the way his lips have parted slightly in his surprise or the slight raise of eyebrows. 

“Well, here’s my vow—we’ll bring Jinhai back from wherever he’s gone and then come back here to finish our training. I’ll get my tattoos. It’ll hurt. I’ll cry. But it’ll be okay. They’ll have been worth it. Sully can teach him how to waterbend and we’ll travel and we’ll make a difference. But most of all, we’ll all be happy. We’ll be safe. I’ll make sure of it.”

Ahote makes a noise low in the back of his throat. His eyes burn into her. “That’s a pretty big vow. Are you up to it?”

She fixes him with her gaze and that fear and righteous anger simmers in her belly. “I know. And I mean every word. I don’t care what it takes. We’re going to be alright. We have to.”

**IV.**

For a bison unaccustomed to long travels, Yeshe supports them better than Sora thought she would. They make it all the way to the main continent and then a little further by the time they stop for rest on the first night. Sora gives her carrots as a reward and she thinks this makes the airbender girl like her just a little bit more. 

Sora smiles at her from across a fire as she feeds Yeshe. Dorjee only inclines her head. Of everyone in this group, Dorjee is the one she is least close with but they share a mutual respect—they are two sides of the rusted coin, working towards the same goal. 

(Taken from their homes. Sold like brood mares. Twisted into something docile and controlled that soothes the worries of the lesser men. They’ve both lost something they can never get back. Sora thinks Dorjee is stronger for it but she’s not so sure about herself.)

They all sleep fitfully that night. Jinhai’s heartbeat has slowed. Sully does what he can with healing but he’s no master and the body can only last so long without its soul. They wake early the next day, just when the sun begins to crawl up over the horizon. Sora plots out their schedule for the day. 

On the second day, though, they can tell Yeshe is tired. She flies lower to the ground. When they reach a large ravine, she doesn’t have the strength to go any higher, so they fly through it. Water rushes hundreds of feet below them, a dull roar that thrums in her ears. 

Hotaru is propped up at the back of the saddle with Jinhai’s head laid across her lap. Her fingers dance across his forehead, twirling and untwirling curls around her fingers. A permanent frown has made itself a home on her face. She hasn’t said a word since they left the temple. 

Sora wishes she knew how to help but she feels terribly useless. She’s a soldier, excellent at taking orders and even giving them when the situation asks for it. But military training doesn’t teach you how to comfort your worried friend. It doesn’t teach you _anything_ useful when it comes to being a good friend. She takes a page out of her mother’s book and makes sure that Hotaru eats at every meal. She’s not sure what else she can do. 

Dorjee sits at the head of the bison, a rein made of hemp clutched in her hands. Ahote sits behind her, about as close as he can go without impeding. Suluk leans over the saddle to watch the water rush below him. Not for the first time, Sora wonders what it must be like to be so intimately connected with their world.

“How much longer do you think it’ll be until we reach the swamp?” Sully asks her. 

“Ten more hours or so. We’re two thirds of the way there.”

Sully nods and returns to peering at the water. Sora sighs and laces her fingers behind her head as she stares up. It is a beautiful day. High above them, the sun is shining and even down within the narrow walls of the ravine, light glitters off the rock and greenery snaking up its sides. Hotaru is humming a soft tune and, somewhere nearby, a hawk cries. A moment passes. The hawk cries again.

Sora perks up, lifting herself up on her elbows, and peers back down the ravine the way they’ve just come. A frown tugs at her lips. “Did you hear that?”

Sully frowns as he follows her gaze. “No. What are you talking about?”

“There’s something nearby. Something that keeps…”

Sora’s words drop off. She can’t finish as her words catch in her throat.

Sully looks up at her strangely before following her gaze.

“Oh, sweet Yangchen,” he swears and barrels into a standing position.

“What is it—”

Because a wall of writhing, slithering, hissing creatures has rounded the corner of the ravine. Green and yellow and purple, they surge forward.

A voice emerges among them, a growl that seizes Sora’s spine.

_Give me the boy give me the boy GIVE ME THE BOY—_

The spirits surge forward and Ahote is the first of them to strike. He pushes forward with a punch he brings over his left forearm. Fire billows forward and the spirits shriek. 

It doesn’t not stop them.

Sora brings her blades out from behind her back. She usually relies on chi blocking but something tells her that it won’t be adequate against the winged mass of horrific creatures surging forward. She brings her katana forward in an arc that slices through a spirit that swoops down to seize Jinhai’s body. 

Sully brings the water out of its skin and forms something close to an octopus but the confined space of the saddle makes it difficult for any of them to fight properly.

Dorjee cracks the reins at Yeshe’s head and the bison groans. 

Hotaru has covered Jinhai’s body with her own. In such a small space, Sora is grateful she hasn’t taken the opportunity to bend. Her restraint is still weak at best, even if the strength of her bending is something Sora has never seen before. 

A spirit dives forward and Sora doesn’t have time to even think before it embeds his talons into Ahote’s shoulder. 

Ahote yells and grips the spirit with a flaming hand. The spirit shrieks and twists and pulls away, its leathery wings beating furiously. 

The Sun Warrior stumbles, one hand still clutching the spirit while the other grasps at his shoulder wound. 

Hotaru screams as Ahote falls over the edge of the saddle, the winged spirit falling with him. A falling, shooting star as he pluments in a mass of flame.

Adrenaline buzzes through Sora’s body. Her fists ache where they grip her blade too tightly. She barely registers Dorjee’s words— _take the reins_ —before the airbender leaps from the bison to follow Ahote down.

**V.**

The wind is not a whistle in her ears, a soft whisper, or a gentle song. It’s a howl, a scream, a sound so ferocious and deep that it pierces her body and digs itself into her bones. 

She can see Ahote below her. He’s falling, falling, _falling_ , his body spread with his head tilted back as he free falls toward the violent waters below. 

Dorjee tucks her arms to her side and bends the air around her so that she rockets down until she’s close enough to wrap her hand around Ahote’s wrist. Her fingers dig in hard enough that he’ll bruise but she doesn’t care. She puts herself underneath him, presses both of her hands to each side of his face. Ahote’s eyes are closed, his dark eyelashes pressed firmly against the tops of his cheeks. Her breath comes in quick pants as she realizes he’s completely unconscious, completely incapable of using fire to slow their descent.

She is alone. 

Dorjee swears and twists them so that her back is to his chest. Her hands go to his hips as she tries to gain purchase of his body and hold him tightly enough that he doesn’t slip from her grasp.

Her hair slices her face and her eyes burn as the wind tears at her, a violent creature hellbent on ripping her apart. A sob builds in her chest but that wicked thing she’d felt at the temple—the fear and the rage blended—has returned and she can feel it whispering at her ear. 

She remembers Mela’s teachings. _You do not control the wind. You barter with it. You coax it, ease it. You are not its master._

The wicked thing does not like this, does not like being held at the mercy of someone else.

They have spent a lifetime wheedling and begging and bartering, a lifetime putting her safety in the hands of something determined to hurt her.

They will not bend. _She_ will not bend.

Pain bursts deep in her chest as she rips into the air around her, digs in claws and teeth and talons and shouts that _it will take her order_ . She can taste its anger, its fury that she _dares_ command it. She can feel as it lashes out at her with barbed whips that shred her soul. 

Air splutters at her feet as she pushes down and her arms feel like they’re splintering as she struggles against the weight of the world around her. The water below grows closer and closer, so close she cannot tell the difference between the howl of the wind and the roar of the waters below. 

The wind screams at her and she grips it and pushes it into place. _I am your master. I am your master. I am your master I am your master I am your master. I am your master and you will obey me._

The pain in her body grows so great that Dorjee cannot contain her own scream as she battles with the wind. It rips itself from her throat, burns at her eyes, aches in every inch of her body, and pulls at her fingernails as she digs them into her palms. 

It wriggles and writhes under her control. She can feel its panic as she sinks in her teeth, locks them into place like a ferocious beast. And she feels when it gives way, when it becomes pliable and soft in her hands like unmolded clay.

Dorjee squeezes her eyes shut, her scream shattering out of her throat. The world around her explodes. 

**VI**.

Sora snatches Ahote’s wrist and Sully grabs Dorjee’s at the waist; together, they pull them into the bison’s saddle and Yeshe moans as her feet brush the water below before she soars higher. 

The spirits are still rushing at them, a wall of writhing black and purple limbs that screech and hiss. Yellow eyes peer at them from within the mass and Hotaru’s heart jackhammers against her ribs. 

_We can’t outrun them._

Hotaru turns to Sora. “How are they? Are they alright?”

Sora’s fingers press at Dorjee’s throat. “She’s alive. Unconscious. We need to wrap Ahote’s wound. He’s bleeding badly.”

Sully shucks of his tunic and throws it to Sora. “Make a strips long enough for bandages and maybe a tourniquet. I don’t know how well I’ll be able to stop the bleeding. It’s deep.”

With a flick of his wrist, Suluk uncaps his waterskins and the water glows around his hands as he presses them to the gashes in Ahote’s side.

Hotaru pulls Dorjee away and lays her next to Jinhai. The both of them are deathly still, though for different reasons, and her throat swells as she takes in the sight of her family. 

Two unconscious. One injured. Three left standing. 

_We aren’t going to outrun them. What would Jinhai do?_

Hotaru stands at the back of the saddle as Yeshe barrels through the ravine, dodging the ragged edges and navigating the narrowing passage. 

She lifts her arms and her fingers twitch as she takes hold of the earth around her. Her chi bursts from her, eager to find a home outside her body. 

“What are you doing?” Sora shouts over the wind. “Sit down. You’re going to fall.”

Hotaru shakes her head. This is something she has to do. She has to stop them. She won’t let them hurt her family. 

Her fingers curl, curl in until she’s gripping the walls of ravine around her in an ironclad grasp. She feels a wetness on her nose, feels it drip over her upper lip and down her chin. Her jaw locks. Her ears ring. 

Hotaru drags her arms in, shaking under the strain as she pulls that earth forward.

The spirits scream as the walls of the ravine crack and tumble and groan. 

She vaguely hears Sora swear behind her and feels Sully’s arm wrap around her waist and pull her to the bottom of the saddle as the bison tilts skyward in a near vertical ascent. He lays on top of her, his chest pressed into her side as he holds her, Dorjee, Ahote, and Jinhai in place with his body and a frozen band of water. 

They soar into the open blue skies like an arrow and Hotaru feels as her control on the earth slips. But the damage is done, a catalyst that cannot be stopped.

Behind them, the ravine crumbles. 

The spirits do not follow.

**VII.**

Kurozuka is relentless in her pursuit. 

After she shared her intents to eat his soul, to swallow the damn thing whole, Jinhai had pushed himself up and rocketed into the writhing dark. 

He can’t see where he's going but he doesn’t much care. Anywhere is better than by the witch’s side. 

A true _yokai_ . Hotaru has warned him of them. Not just a spirit, who were neither light nor dark, but a soul that had once been human and corrupted beyond repair. It was _yokai_ that she thought haunted the forests around Xianghao and she’d been close to the truth. 

A howl echoes behind him and Jinhai stumbles before righting himself and continuing on. 

She’s called her creatures, then—the dark lupine beings Jinhai is beginning to question the origin of. Are they truly spirits or something more? Jinhai only knows that they are Kurozuka’s monsters—wholly and entirely hers; there wasn’t a single bit of lore on them in Mela’s library—and death and disappearances follow wherever they travel. 

An answer wriggles at the back of his mind but he’s too scared and too frantic to consider it. 

Jinhai’s bare foot snags on a root and he is sent sprawling. His arms catch him and his palms bark in pain upon impact. 

Fear tells him to get up and keep running. But when a hot breath blooms across his neck, he stills. 

The beast remains there, it’s teeth inches from his neck, until Kurozuka calls it to heel with a click of her tongue. 

“You cannot run from me here, Avatar. There is nowhere you can hide that I do not know of.”

Jinhai clenches his teeth.

Sharp nails clamp around his neck. An invisible vice locks his phantom limbs in place. Suddenly, he feels so very cold.

“I will devour you, one way or another. Yield to me now and I will make it painless.”

He does not answer. 

Those nails snake around his jaw and tilt it up. He’s looking at her, inches away from her stained teeth, and at this distance he can see starbursts of broken blood vessels in her cheeks, her neck, her chest. They’re mottled and blackened and Jinhai realizes— _she’s dying. She hasn’t fed._

 _“Yield,”_ she hisses and her nails break the skin on his jaw. He feels the blood drip down his neck and it only steels his resolve as he meets her dark gaze. 

“No.”

Her jaw clicks. Her nails dig into his skin. The vice around his body wraps in tighter and the ice in him grows colder. 

“Then I will relish in making this as painful as possible.”

And then Kurozuka lowers her mouth to his own. 

**VIII.**

Eventually, they reach the Foggy Swamp. 

They have all seen better days.

Ahote has stopped bleeding but even several hours later he has not regained consciousness. Neither has Dorjee, whose pulse is a faint flutter underneath the thin skin of her wrist. Hotaru is exhausted in ways she cannot explain; for the first time in her life, energy doesn’t bubble under her skin. 

But even for all of their injuries, they are not the one that Sully lifts from Yeshe’s saddle and carries into the village in a dead sprint. They are not the ones who now stand at the precipice of Death’s door. 

Jinhai has taken a turn for the worse. 

His pulse cannot be found without Suluk’s bending. His tan skin has turned gray and his fingers and lips are ice cold. 

Jinhai is dying. Himiko is the only one who can preserve his body. Even still—what is a body without its soul?

A woman waits for them in the village square. 

Her skin is dark—darker than Jinhai, darker than Sully—and her long hair is white and braided back severely. Her posture is slumped with age but there’s still undeniable power in the way she holds herself. 

“Himiko?” asks Suluk in a breathless huff. He clutches Jinhai’s frail frame to his chest.

The old woman—who has lived through four Avatars, two genocides, and a world war—nods her head. She doesn’t speak but Suluk remembers what he’d been told; her tongue was cut out by the Fire Nation after she was captured and interrogated.

Himiko moves more quickly than Suluk would have thought possible. He leaves the others behind; there are other healers, other villagers, who can care for their lesser injuries. 

The waterbender weaves through trees and vines, knee deep water covered in lily pads and moss. Jinhai grows colder in his arms with each second that passes. 

Himiko pulls back a wall of vines that hang from a twisted branch. Suluk steps through the hole and his breath catches in his throat.

Towering far, far above him is the largest tree he has ever seen in his entire life. The branches that spiral from its trunk are massive, living creatures in their own right. The size of the leaves that hang from the bows are enough to blot out the late afternoon sun. 

The great banyan-grove tree. The tree that Avatar Kei worshiped, that had protected her in her childhood and survived the Fire Nation’s attack. The tree that would now save Jinhai’s life. 

Himiko leads him to a small pool of water, framed by the curling roots of the banyan-grove tree. 

She points, gestures for him to place him in the water, and Sully can’t move fast enough to follow her request.

Jinhai hovers in the pool, his dark hair turning black in the water. The purple stain of exhaustion under his eyes looks so stark next to the thriving life of the swamp around him. 

Himiko raises her hands and the water follows, glowing a bright, pure blue that Suluk is familiar with. Life bleeds into his gray skin and a flush returns to his sunken cheeks. It’s only taken three days for the life to have been sucked from the very marrow of Jinhai’s bones.

Himiko hisses when her water snags on empty reservoirs and rotting pools of chi. She doesn’t let it stop her. 

And so Suluk watches as Himiko, ancient and strong and wise like the tree, brings the Avatar back from death.

**IX.**

The witch’s mouth on his own is like ice. There is nothing soft or yielding about Kurozuka’s mouth, nothing feminine or human about her lips as they slant over his.

He can feel her claws digging through his mind. She’s searching through something, and he’s _trying_ —trying to resist the control she’s taken over his body and mind.

Jinhai worms and twists and riots. But none of it is strong enough and slowly, _slowly_ , he begins to sink into her grasp. He begins to welcome it. And when the witch pulls back, he does not see the rotting woman from before.

He sees midnight eyes and shining black hair and ruby red lips. 

_She’s sucking the life from me. Draining me whole._

Kurozuka smiles at him. He knows she likes what she sees as she grabs his hair and pulls his face back to look at her. He can hardly focus his eyes. He is so very tired, so very cold. He can hardly remember his own name.

“Avatar,” she croons, dragging her tongue along her bottom lip, “what a lovely soul you have. So lonely. So afraid. What a life of suffering you have led.”

_Avatar. I am... the Avatar._

And some deep, ancient part of him calls out to that title. For what, he is not sure. But he calls out—and feels something answer in kind. 

Kurozuka leans to place her mouth over his again, to devour what scraps remains of his dirty soul. 

But the hard planes of her mouth never come. And then the talons are being removed from his neck and hair. Jinhai slumps forward, shaking and tremouring.

A shriek echoes through the empty world Kurozuka has taken him to.

When Jinhai looks up, he sees two figures—blurry as he comes back to his senses.

Finally, he focuses.

The Conqueror is holding Kurozuka by her hair, one hand tightly laced in the black locks, while the other is planted between her shoulder blades, shoving her forward. Kei’s face is twisted into a terrifying, primal snarl, her white paint accenting the sharp lines of her face. _You will not touch him, witch._

Kurozuka scrambles to her feet with speed that is inhuman. She scuttles as she moves, a spider spinning a web across its catch. Kei stands between him and Kurozuka, unmovable, unbreakable, a stone pillar in a desert storm.

“You are not strong enough on your own,” Kurozuka hisses and bares her teeth. “You cannot protect him alone.”

Kei’s hands curl at her sides. “I am not alone. And neither is he.”

And then her voice deepens as more bodies flicker into existence next to her. The depth of her young voice broadens and echoes and divides itself until it is a thousand voices all at once. A young boy with arrow tattoos places a hand on Jinhai’s shoulder and Jinhai looks up into those familiar gray eyes. Aang smiles, lifts him to his feet with surprising strength, and holds his hand as Jinhai’s past lives arrive to shelter him from Kurozuka’s wrath.

“You can try and take him, Kurozuka,” Kei continues and the challenge she poses is as clear as day. “But you will first have to destroy a very long, very powerful line of Avatars who came before him.”

**X.**

Himiko spends the rest of the day and a full night in the swamp healing the Avatar.

(Suluk remains by his side until Himiko shoos him away. He tells her that someone needs to protect him and the others are all far too injured or exhausted to be up to the task. She tells him in not so many words that she’s insulted he thinks her incapable of protecting the Avatar. The woman is old enough and scary enough that he doesn’t question her twice.)

In the village, the rest of their group is quickly attended to. Minor injuries are treated with traditional swamp healing methods and major ones are attended to by some of Himiko’s more talented students.

When they are all patched up and conscious, they eat around a small fire and nervously wait for news. _Dead or alive? Alive or dead? Or something not-quite-either?_

“We need to figure out how to bring him back,” Hotaru says quietly, her arms curled around her knees. “I don’t think he can come back on his own.”

Ahote nods. Dorjee sits a foot to the right of him. (They still haven’t discussed what it means for her to have so blatantly risked her life for the chance to save him; there had been no hesitation, no consideration that she was half-trained and that she might have been throwing herself to die.)

“He didn’t just slip into the Spirit World and get lost there. Something took him. It’s draining his life force more quickly than we anticipated it to as well. We need to get him back in his body before even Himiko isn’t strong enough to keep him alive,” Ahote says. His focus is half on a drawing he’s making in the dirt with the sharp end of a stick. It’s a demon with curling horns and a pointed tail.

“How do we do that?” Dorjee asks. 

“We’ll have to meditate in after him,” Ahote says. “It won’t be easy, if it’s even possible. The people of my tribe spend years trying to master their spirituality. As far as I know, none of us are hiding any innate spiritual gifts. I was able to get Jinhai through with the technique because he already had a foundation. I don’t know how to get someone else there.”

Suluk clears his throat. “I may be able to help with that.” All eyes flicker to the waterbender and he has enough humility to look embarrassed. “We really haven’t had time to talk. It’s all been so crazy. Ahote knows that my parents were uprooted because of the war, but my father… he was royalty in the Northern Water Tribe. A prince, actually. Third in line.”

Hotaru blinks hard a few times. “So you mean to tell us that we not only have the chief of the Sun Warrior Tribe but a potential heir to the Northern Water Tribe in our numbers?”

Suluk scratches the back of his neck. “I don’t think I have any real claim. My father’s family thought he was dead when he never returned from the prisons. The truth was—he’d met my mother, fell in love, and had no interest in being told he couldn’t marry her because she was a nobody from the Southern Tribe. That’s beside the point, though. Even without the claim, I do come from a bloodline of waterbenders who have always naturally excelled at the spirit side of things. I’ve never tried to meditate into the Spirit World or get in contact with spirits but I think with Ahote’s help… I definitely could.”

It is quiet for a moment. They all know that sending Suluk to the Spirit World to find Jinhai is dangerous. Something sinister lurks there, something that not even an Avatar can fight off. But they don’t have a choice. And so the decision is already made.

“Then in the morning,” Ahote says, “when my bending is strongest. I will guide you where you need to go, Suluk.”

**XI.**

The dawn comes all too soon.

“Are you ready?” the warrior asks and balls his hands so that the waterbender cannot see the tremble in his fingers. 

Suluk blows out a heavy breath and closes his eyes. Jinhai lies next to him in the water, only a few feet away. He looks to Himiko, who stands behind his new comrades, and finds strength in the unwavering depths of her blue eyes, an understanding that words cannot explain. “As ready as I’ll ever be.”

**XII.**

The Avatars do a fine job warding off Kurozuka. Her rage is something that turns real and terrible, a black cloud that swarms the air around Jinhai, prodding for gaps in the protection his past lives provide him. 

He can hear her shrieks, infuriated and horrible. Aang only holds his hand tighter.

He’s not sure how long they stay like that in the dark. The bodies of his past lives’ press in around him. He spots Kyoshi’s gold headpiece and the pointed end of Roku’s crown. Somewhere, he knows that Aumanil stands to protect him but he isn’t sure where she hides; he thinks that if it were his sister threatened to destroy the world, he might hide, too.

And then something new comes and Kurozuka’s rage quiets. The witch disappears.

A flash of light and through the mass of past Avatars, he sees him. He hates how scared he feels in that moment. 

“Suluk, you need to go,” he shouts, his heart hammering in his chest. “You can’t be here.”

“I came to get you,” Sully insists. “You’re dying out in the real world. You need to come back now.”

“You need to go,” he says, pushing through the throng of Avatars until he is standing feet away from the waterbender. “It’s not safe.”

The hairs on the back of Jinhai’s neck stand on end and the fear that sweeps through him tastes rotten in his mouth.

“ _Go_ ,” Jinhai says. 

Suluk shakes his head, still reaches out his hand. 

_She’s coming. She’s coming. She’s here._

Kurozuka winks into existence behind Suluk’s spirit. She looks like a devil, a demon, something wicked and terrible as she stares at him with those wholly-black eyes.

Jinhai reaches for Sully—to protect him, to move him, to save his friend from the witch who’s held his soul captive. 

“Fine,” Kurozuka hisses, her body trembling with rage. She wipes her mouth with the back of her hand ferociously. “If you will not give me your body, I will take _his_.”

And then she latches onto Suluk, gripping the back of his neck with her glittering black talons, and Jinhai watches as she sinks her teeth into the base of his neck—and swallows Suluk’s soul whole.

**XIII.**

Jinhai jolts forward with a sharp gasp and suddenly there are hands on his body, pushing him back down. _Where is he where is he where is he?_

“Jinhai! Calm down! Calm down; you’re alright!”

The Avatar shakes his head. _Where is he? Where is Suluk?_

His fingers curl around a forearm. He’s frantic as he looks around the small clearing, the lower half of his body submerged in water.

“Where is he?” he rasps. “Where is Sully?”

“He’s right here,” the voice says again, low and soothing. It’s Hotaru’s voice, he realizes. Of course it’s her voice. She’s always there to care for him. 

Jinhai follows Hotaru’s pointing hand and to the waterbender several feet away. Eyes glare back at him, midnight blue, but it is not Sully who looks at him. Horror spoils in Jinhai’s gut.

He reaches for earth before he can think twice and hurls it at Suluk’s body and screams.

“You bitch! Bring him back!” he bellows. _“Bring him back!”_

Hotaru is scrambling for his arms again. He knows she’s confused. He knows she doesn’t understand. “Jinhai, stop it!” she screams.

Sully, who is not Sully, grins. “I cannot, Avatar.”

Hotaru and Ahote and Dorjee and an old woman he does not recognize, all who were desperately attempting to stop his assault, freeze.

“Bring him back,” he whispers and his eyes burn. _My fault. All my fault. Bring him back._

“I cannot,” they repeat and he sees Kurozuka’s spirit in the cold, ferociousness hidden within the grin that splits Suluk’s face. “I will not, until you forfeit Raava to me. You have three days. Three days to organize your affairs. On the third day, I will send a crow and when that crow lets loose it’s third cry, I will come for everything you love.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> oop. kurozuka is in suluk's body. rip. did you guys miss himiko at all? i kind of did. she was minor in kei's arc but like i really loved her. now that jinhai is out of the spirit world, kurozuka has entered the physical plane and is hellbent on possessing jinhai, and we have three days to figure out what the fuck do do about it....... thoughts?
> 
> i also just want to add that kei dragging kurozuka by her _fucking hair_ was the highlight for this chapter and something i've been wanting to write since i started writing jinhai. kei did not come to play.
> 
> ———
> 
> NEXT: nine | the return


	10. EXCERPTS and AUTHOR'S NOTE

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hello everyone! i'm so sorry that it's been so long. as i'm sure we all know, covid has really thrown a wrench in things. since i last updated, i've transferred schools, got my associates, moved cities, rented my first apartment, came out as a lesbian, and finally picked out my minor! (surprise, it's english and i'm reading some really cool literature this semester.) so, as you can see, a lot has happened. but that's life!
> 
> what have you guys been up to?
> 
> this isn't a full-length chapter but i wanted to post a little teaser so that the readers (if there are any left) know to look out for an update soon. i only have a few more sections to finish and then i've got to edit it so it flows since it's been written over the course of the last seven months. 
> 
> i hope that everyone is staying safe, healthy, and are taking care of themselves! the next chapter should be release within the next week or so.

**EXCERPT #1 FROM CHAPTER 9**

> “We need an army.”
> 
> Sora has barely allowed Jinhai to finish speaking before she clears the table, pushing the few belongings there onto the floor, and pulls a map out from her pile of things in the corner.
> 
> It’s rolled up and tied with a piece of leather, a gift from Mela with Himiko’s village marked in dark blue ink. It covers most of the Earth Kingdom’s western states. The Foggy Swamp is detailed on the parchment, as well as Gaoling and other neighboring, smaller city-states. She even sees Xianghao, Jinhai’s home city. 
> 
> She places the map on the table, setting paperweights on its four corners, and scans the information she finds there. Sora drums her fingers against the table and bites the inside of her cheek. _Where to draw her to… somewhere with as little water as possible and access to plenty of earth._
> 
> “An army?” Jinhai asks. His voice is paper-thin and weak.

* * *

**EXCERPT #2 FROM CHAPTER 9**

> “You bought me,” she says and her voice trembles despite the hardness she’s tried to put in her will. It’s not fear that she quivers with; it’s a lifetime of hatred. “You bought me from people who stole me from my _real_ family because you wanted a pet to show off at your parties. You gave me to your son and let him break me like he might break a toy. You let Ahn beat me, rape me, and humiliate me in _every way possible_. You did nothing to stop him and you forbade anyone else in the house from stopping him, too. You owe me a debt, Ju Long Chen, for what you stole from me when you bought me and abused me.”
> 
> Dorjee blows a controlled breath through her teeth and reigns herself in.
> 
> “My price is two things.”

* * *

**EXCERPT #3 FROM CHAPTER 9**

> At the shoreline, like steam rising, Sora sees bodies surfacing—bodies and bodies of monsters and creatures. She feels their rumbling groan as Kurozuka calls them into this world with a power that is not natural, not human, not like anything she’s ever felt before.
> 
> Kurozuka stands at the shore. She can feel the weight of the witch’s gaze, the hatred and the anger that burns in them.


End file.
